Trajan Langdon continues to reform the Detroit Pistons front office, and according to a new report, one new member could be one of the finalists he beat out for the president of basketball operations role.
Marc Stein reports that Dennis Lindsey, who was one of the finalists who met with Tom Gores as part of the POBO hiring process, is a candidate to join Detroit’s front office.
“League sources tell The Stein Line that the Detroit Pistons have continued to show interest in hiring away Mavericks senior adviser Dennis Lindsey to join the front office team Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon is assembling,” Stein writes.
Lindsey was always one of the franchise’s top candidates to get a role in Detroit, and if he is looking to formalize a top-level role within a franchise after his long career with the Utah Jazz, the Pistons could be an ideal fit. He currently works for the Dallas Mavericks as a special adviser. He has worked in Dallas for the past year after resigning from Utah after a decade.
Dallas just signed GM Nico Harrison to a contract extension, so there might not be the title or level of responsibility that Harrison is looking for or the Pistons could offer. However, it should be noted that Stein reports that Dallas is hopeful of retaining Lindsey.
Stein is not one of the most well-connected reporters in NBA circles, and he is especially plugged in to the comings and goings at his home base in Dallas, so I treat this report extremely credulously.
Lindsey spent his last two years in Utah as the executive vice president of basketball operations and seven years as the team’s general manager. He built the Jazz into a perennial playoff team, including orchestrating NBA Draft Day trades for cornerstones Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell.
Lindsey seems to be a casualty of a new ownership group in Utah that wanted to pivot hard into an aggressive rebuild led by former Boston Celtics executive Danny Ainge. Lindsey also courted controversy when former Jazz player Elijah Millsap accused Lindsey of making a racist comment in 2015.
Millsap said in 2021 that during a 2015 exit interview following the season, Lindsey told him, “If you say one more word, I’ll cut your Black ass and send you back to Louisiana.”
Lindsey denied the accusation, and former coach Quin Snider and GM Justin Zanik also claimed not to have heard such a statement from Lindsey. After an investigation, the NBA could not substantiate Millsap’s allegation.
In the same piece, among other juicy tidbits regarding the next Lakers coach, the interest in Paul George, and other info, Stein does restate a familiar refrain regarding the Pistons. Detroit and Langdon are “in the midst of evaluating whether to retain Monty Williams as coach.”
There is no indication of when a final decision will be made on Williams’ future with the franchise.