After winning the national championship as UConn’s head coach in 2014, Kevin Ollie has been mentioned a lot as a candidate to take over the NBA team.
Years after his time at UConn took a bad turn and he and his alma mater parted ways on bitter terms, Ollie, 50, has reportedly emerged as a candidate to coach the Detroit Pistons.
As I first mentioned before Sharanya’s sports sun, the Pistons plan to meet Ollie, among others, for their vacant coaching position. Other reports, including The Detroit News, take note Ollie is one of several candidates for the jobincluding NBA assistants Charles Lee, Adrian Griffin and Chris Quinn, who will be considered by GM Troy Weaver.
The Detroit Pistons will interview former University of Connecticut coach and 13-year-old NBA veteran Kevin Ollie for their head coaching job, sources tell me and @employee. Ole guided UConn to the 2014 NCAA Tournament and recently finished a coaching job at Overtime Elite.
– Shams Charania April 14, 2023
Ollie, a UConn point guard from 1991-95, played 13 years in the NBA, starting on a string of 10-day contracts. He was known as a player who got every ounce of his ability and became a respected locker room mentor to young stars like Kevin Durant and LeBron James.
Weaver was an executive at the Oklahoma City Thunder while Ole was finishing his playing career there in 2009-10.
When he achieved amazing initial success as UConn’s head coach, he was soon referred to as a candidate to coach the Lakers, Cavaliers, Thunder and Pistons at one point or another. Teams were said to be impressed with the NBA-style array of plays Ole Ole ran when he had players capable of executing them.
Ollie remained at UConn, but after the Huskies won 25 games in 2015-16, he had consecutive losing seasons, a number of players were transferred and the program was investigated for NCAA infractions.
Reports: Kevin Olley has left his position at Overtime Elite, and another former UConn assistant is taking over
UConn attempted to fire Ollie for “just cause” in March 2018 for those violations, and the NCAA later determined that he provided false and misleading information to investigators, and it was deemed a “Level I” violation. The irregularities, themselves, were relatively minor, and the arbitrator, using both Ollie’s contract and the collective bargaining agreement between UConn and its professors union, ruled that Ollie should receive the $11.1 million owed according to his contract. O’Conn and Ollie later settled his other legal claims and costs for another $3.9 million.
Meanwhile, Ole had received a three-year “exhibition cause” order from the NCAA, making it impossible for him to coach in college. Instead, he coached the Overtime Elite, an organization that offers wages to high school players who want to train for the pros without going to college. several Elite overtime players are considered the most likely NBA draft picks Anthologies in 2023 or later, including Amen and Ozar Thompson.
So Ole, who left the Overtime Elite last month, could bring familiarity with the talent available for the next few drafts to a Detroit franchise that had the worst record in the NBA (17-65) and could finish with the No. 1 pick in the draft via the lottery. Coach Duane Casey, coach this past season, is moving into the front office.