DJ Bakker is well-acquainted with Detroit Pistons head coach Dwane Casey. He joined Casey’s coaching staff with the Toronto Raptors in 2016, and then followed Casey to Detroit two seasons later.
Bakker has been an integral part of Detroit’s player development program and worked closely with Saddiq Bey last season to help him earn first-team All-Rookie honors.
The Motor City Cruise, the Pistons’ incoming G League franchise, announced Bakker as its inaugural head coach on Tuesday. Bakker’s proven track record as a talent developer and his longstanding relationship with Casey made him a natural fit for the job.
PUT ME IN, COACH: Pistons new G League team Motor City Cruise to hold open tryouts Sept. 15
When Pistons general manager Troy Weaver, Cruise president and GM Rob Murphy and other front office brass approached Bakker about the position earlier this year, he knew it was time to make the jump to head coach.
“Being able to still have a strong impact on the development of our players was something that was extremely appealing to me,” Bakker said during his news conference Tuesday. “The opportunity to work side-by-side with Rob was extremely appealing, and the opportunity to be here in Detroit and continue to have an impact on the organization was something I wanted to be a part of, and I jumped on as soon as they wanted to talk with me and meet. Very excited for today and this opportunity and really thankful to everybody that put time in during this process.”
Bakker is making the move from the Pistons to the Cruise during a pivotal time for both organizations. The Pistons are banking that their young core — led by Cade Cunningham, Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart, Bey and others — will lead the franchise back to its former championship glory. By bringing the Cruise to Detroit, the organization is investing even further in its player development program.
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The Cruise will play on Wayne State’s campus at a new arena being built off the intersection of Warren and Trumbull in Midtown. The arena will be close to both of the Pistons main facilities; the practice facility and Little Caesars Arena are also located in Midtown. It’ll enable the Pistons to quickly assign players to the Cruise without much hassle. Previously, players had to make the three-hour drive to Grand Rapids when the Pistons were partnered with the Drive.
Like most G League teams and their parent clubs, the Pistons and Cruise will run the same sets on the floor and use the same playbook terminology. The goal is to create a seamless transition between the two franchises, which will aid the development of players such as 2021 second-round pick Luka Garza, who signed a two-way contract and will split his time between both teams next season.
“We put a lot of young guys in place from both organizations, talking about the Detroit Pistons and now the Motor City Cruise, and we needed someone who does a great job of communicating, teaching with the understanding of making sure we’re keeping the same system in place,” Murphy said Tuesday. “That was very important for Coach Casey, very important for Troy, and there’s no better guy at this time than DJ Bakker who understands the system, who can teach it and coach it and communicate it well. So there will be a seamless transition when guys are going back-and-forth and playing and also developing the young players we’ve assigned to bring in.”
It won’t be Bakker’s first time witnessing how a G League team operates in sync with its parent club. The Raptors and their G League team, Raptors 905, has had great success with the hybrid model. Casey was a fan of it while he was in Toronto, and the Pistons now bring it to Detroit.
While Bakker will miss aspects of his own job, such as doing one-on-one work with players every day, he’s eager to take on a bigger role within the organization and expand his skillset as an up-and-coming coach.
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes how coach Casey utilized the G League when we were in Toronto together with the 905,” Bakker said. “A lot of our key players there — Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, Norm Powell — a number of those guys were used in the G League for their development. I know Troy and Rob, that was a huge piece of wanting this team in Detroit was so the players could utilize as much as they can to get game reps and, like Rob said, to get that seamless transition. Difficult on one end not to work with some of the guys from a day-to-day basis, but besides that, I think on a larger scale, you’ll see a handful of the players that we needed to develop be utilized with the Motor City Cruise and be able to be a part of that and help lead that with something that just made it an opportunity that was easy to take interest in.”
Contact Omari Sankofa II at osankofa@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @omarisankofa. Read more on the Detroit Pistons and sign up for our Pistons newsletter.