Dwane Casey out as head coach of Pistons, will move into front office role, per report

Casey has coached the Pistons for five years

Dwane Casey is out as head coach of the Detroit Pistons, he announced after Sunday's season-ending loss to the Chicago Bulls. He will move into a front office role with the Pistons, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. Bucks assistant Charles Lee and former Celtics coach Ime Udoka are expected to be candidates for the Detroit job, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.

Casey has been the head coach of three different NBA teams, and while his time in Minnesota was largely disappointing, he had a very successful run as coach of the Toronto Raptors. He made the playoffs in his last five seasons with the Raptors, but despite winning Coach of the Year, was fired after going 59-23 during the 2017-18 season. He was replaced by assistant Nick Nurse, who led the Raptors to a championship immediately afterward.

Casey immediately took the Pistons job upon being let go and led Detroit to the postseason in his debut season thanks to an All-NBA performance by Blake Griffin. But Griffin's body didn't hold up, and the Pistons were forced to rebuild thereafter. The Pistons haven't made the playoffs since, and this season, with former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham sidelined to an early-season injury, the Pistons had the NBA's worst record at 17-65.

Now, Pistons general manager Troy Weaver will have his first chance to hire a head coach in Detroit, and the team will hope for a lucky lottery night in May to help push this team back into contention. That was initially the goal this season, as Detroit added veterans like Bojan Bogdanovic, Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks in the hopes that doing so would help them make a play-in push.

That didn't come to pass, though, and Casey is seemingly paying for it. No Pistons coach has lasted more than five full seasons since Chuck Daly's legendary championship-winning tenure, and now, Detroit will try to change that with this hire.