2018 Hall of Fame: 4 inductees with ties to the Detroit Pistons
By Amaar Burton
Maurice Cheeks
Mo Cheeks is being inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player, and during his heyday with the 76ers he had some spirited battles with Isiah Thomas and the Pistons.
The closest tie Cheeks has to the Pistons, however, is that he served as the team’s head coach during the 2013-14 season.
Detroit had experienced four straight lottery seasons at the time Cheeks was hired. Following previous gigs in Portland and Philadelphia where he’d led those teams to the playoffs, Cheeks had been working as an assistant with the Oklahoma City Thunder, helping the trio of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden make it to the NBA Finals.
The squad that Cheeks inherited in Detroit was young and had potential. Four starters — Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe, Brandon Jennings and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — were under 25 years old, and the team had signed veteran forward Josh Smith in free agency, who was a borderline All-Star.
But the roster that general manager Joe Dumars had used a lot of money to construct just never clicked, and Cheeks was fired 50 games into the season with the Pistons sporting a 21-29 record.
The next year, Cheeks went back to OKC, where he remains an assistant today.