While no final decision has yet been made, Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach John Kuester is the leading candidate for the Detroit Pistons head coaching job, according to sources, and is expected to get the job officially as soon as Wednesday.

Kuester is familiar to the Pistons, and president of basketball operations Joe Dumars, having served on Larry Brown’s staff in Detroit in 2004 when the Pistons won the NBA championship. He has established himself as one of the league’s better offensive teachers, most recently spending the last two years in Cleveland helping develop the Cavaliers’ halfcourt offense into a more diversified attack — even though the Cavs still get the ball to LeBron James as much as possible.

He has been an NBA assistant for more than a decade, with coaching stops in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Orlando and Boston as well as Detroit and Cleveland. He came to the NBA from the college ranks, where he was an assistant for Rick Pitino at Boston University before succeeding him as head coach. He also was the head coach at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. for five years before going to the Celtics in 1990.

Kuester was one of three coaches that the Pistons had selected as finalists last week, after Dumars fired Michael Curry after just one season. But TNT analyst Doug Collins announced he was not interested in the job last week, and discussions with former Mavericks head coach Avery Johnson broke down over money and years, with the talks ending Tuesday morning. Detroit then turned to Kuester and Celtics assistant Tom Thibodeau, but the Pistons quickly coalesced around Kuester.

Kuester will be the fifth head coach hired by Dumars since he took over as team president in 2000. He has hired some of the league’s premier coaches during that time, including Brown, Rick Carlisle and Flip Saunders, but none of them has lasted more than three seasons.

(nba.com)

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