DETROIT, Mich. – The Detroit Pistons announced today that Sidney Lowe and Sean Sweeney have been named assistant coaches. Additionally, DJ Bakker has been added to the basketball operations staff as a player development coach. Per team policy, terms of the contracts were not disclosed.
Lowe returns to the Detroit Pistons for the third time during his basketball coaching and playing career. He spent the 2005-06 season as lead assistant to head coach Flip Saunders and played six games for the Pistons as a point guard on the 1984-85 squad. The Washington, DC, native and former NBA point guard has spent eight years as a head coach and 12 years as an assistant coach in the NBA and NCAA, most recently serving as an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards the last two seasons. Lowe began his coaching career in 1992, when he became an assistant coach under then-head coach Jimmy Rodgers, eventually being promoted to head coach midway through the 1992-93 season and remaining in the position through the 1993-94 season. In addition, Lowe served three seasons (2011-14) as an assistant with the Utah Jazz after previously serving as head coach at his alma mater, North Carolina State (2006-11). In his first season at NC State, he became the third coach in school history to win 20 games and defeat the three other ACC North Carolina institutions (North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest).
As a player, Lowe was originally selected by the Chicago Bulls with the first pick of the second round (25thoverall) in the 1983 NBA Draft and spent time with Indiana, Detroit and Atlanta. He also spent time in the Continental Basketball Association, leading the Albany Patroons and Tampa Bay Thrillers to CBA titles. Lowe played college basketball under the late Jim Valvano at North Carolina State, earning Final Four All-Tournament honors while helping lead the Wolfpack to the 1983 NCAA Championship.
Sweeney enters his first season with the Pistons after spending the last four seasons as an assistant coach with Jason Kidd’s Milwaukee Bucks squads from 2014-18. The St. Paul native entered the NBA assistant coaching ranks with Kidd as part of this 2013-14 Brooklyn Nets team after serving two season as the Nets’ assistant video coordinator. Before joining the Nets, Sweeney served as video coordinator for the University of Northern Iowa, and previously held the position of director of basketball operations for the University of Evansville. Sweeney played one season at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay before transferring to the University of St. Thomas where he was a three-year starter and earned all-conference honors as a senior in 2005-06.
Bakker served as a member of Dwane Casey’s basketball staff in Toronto the last two seasons as assistant video coordinator and will join the Pistons as a player development coach.