Monty Williams went 46-36 in his first season with New Orleans and made the playoffs. After the season, the team went into full rebuild mode, trading Chris Paul and David West (their two best players). They only won 21 games, but Williams kept them competitive. They won the lottery and drafted Anthony Davis. Williams drew rave reviews for his coaching and mentorship of Davis. In Monty's fourth year, he made the playoffs again despite being outgunned everywhere except Power Forward in terms of talent. He was fired after that year and a lot of people thought it was unfair. He landed as an assistant to Billy Donavan in OKC and drew praise for his work there. Also, obviously, coaching for USA basketball is huge. Now he's in a key front office role with the Spurs.
He didn't win a ton of games, but Monty is generally regarded as one of the brightest up-and-coming defensive minds in the coaching community. He runs some really novel and effective defensive sets. Besides that, he's considered an extremely high character person and lauded for his relationship-building skills. People in the past have suggested that he would excel in the college game due to his personality and gift for teaching/player development. I don't know if he's actually interested, but when the rumor came out and I did some digging, it was like, "huh. That could make a lot of sense." My only concern is whether he'll be able to navigate the gray areas of college recruiting, because he sounds like a really morally upright human being. Obviously not a bad thing, and I think Groce fits into that category and does fine as a recruiter.
