NBA coach Monty Williams takes over Texas high school basketball program

The high school basketball program in Texas has received a boost as a former NBA Coach of the Year joins the team.

Monty Williams, a former head coache the Suns, Pelicans and Pistons, has joined the San Antonio private military school TMI Episcopal as its head coach, the school said in a statement on Sunday.

”We are happy to have Coach Williams in this capacity and eager to see how our basketball team will be in the coming years,” the school said in a statement.

Williams was fired in June after the Detroit Pistons compiled a record of 14-68 and set a dismal record of twenty-eight consecutive losses only a year after the team signed him for a six-year, $78.5 million contract, the biggest in NBA history.

Detroit still has not paid him out on that deal totaling some $65 million.

He will also train his son, Elijah Williams, a 6’5” four star small forward. The younger Williams is also the number one prospect in Texas and the seventh-ranked small forward in the entire country, as well as number twenty-two overall in the class of 2026 according to ESPN.

The 247 Sports Composite themselves along with Rivals both have the 6-foot-6, 200-pound senior as a 5-star talent. He has received invitations to play for the Arizona team, California, Oregon and Notre Dame among others.

He had played the Scottsdale Christian Academy School in Arizona and was part of the team during his junior year when the Eagle finished the season 10-15 and qualify up to the second round of AIA playoffs.

In the 2024 season TMI went 23-19 and advanced to the TAPPS 5A state regional playoffs or the third round.

TMI — Texas Military Institute Episopal is a school for sixth through 12th graders and it as approximately The U.S. News & World Report estimates the size of the school at about 490 students.

Here is TMI Episocal's official statement on the hiring:

With this spirit, let me proudly announce that Monty Williams will be the Head Coach for the Boys’ Basketball Team. Coach Williams has bench certified coaching credential that has placed him to the highest level of coaching in NBA as the head Coach for Detroit Pistons and Phoenix Suns and received NBA 2022, Coach of the year title. He and his wife, Lisa, are new San Antonio residents and also proud TMI parents of Elijah, Class of ‘26, and Micah, Class of ‘29. It will be a pleasure to extend a warm welcome to Coach Williams to this new position as we anticipate the improvement of the basketball program in future.

After high school basketball at Potomac in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Monty Williams, a 6-foot-8 former forward, averaged 7 points and 2 rebounds per game while playing for Notre Dame in the late 80s and early 90s. He was selected by the New York Knicks 1994 and he has spent 10 seasons of his NBA career.

In 2005, he became and assistant coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and remained coaching in the league for 19 years.