Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff says he didn’t expect to coach again after Cavs exit

Not long ago, Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff thought he might be done.

After being let go by the Cavaliers in 2024, Bickerstaff didn’t see another job coming. Not right away, anyway.

“I didn’t think I was going to get a job,” he told Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com. “There weren’t jobs available at that point. So I was just sitting at home and hanging out with my family back in Cleveland trying to figure out what was next.”

The plan, at least then, had nothing to do with the NBA. Bickerstaff said his family was preparing to move to San Clemente, California, so his kids could train at a soccer academy while he figured out the next chapter.

Instead, the next chapter found him.

Bickerstaff landed in Detroit and has since engineered one of the league’s most dramatic turnarounds. The Pistons sit at 40-13, owning the East’s best record all season, just two years removed from setting an NBA mark with 28 straight losses.

Bickerstaff says the brief pause after Cleveland mattered.

“That month that I had off gave me an opportunity to evaluate myself,” he said. “The focus should always be on the process and not just the results.”

He admitted that balance slipped late in his Cleveland tenure.

“In my last year in Cleveland, I let that get the best of me,” he said. “Results, results, results. And we skipped some of the process stuff.”

Detroit hasn’t skipped it. And neither has he.

Sometimes the job you don’t expect is the one you’re finally ready for.