Monty Williams Named Spurs Vice President of Basketball Operations

Former New Orleans Pelicans head coach Monty Williams joined the San Antonio Spurs staff Friday as the franchise's new vice president of basketball operations. 

The Spurs announced the hire on their official website. Williams, who spent two years in San Antonio during his playing career, was most recently the associate head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder and a member of the United States national team staff.

The 44-year-old former first-round selection played for five different NBA teams during a career that spanned nearly a decade before he retired in 2003. He made the transition to coaching, joining the Portland Trail Blazers in 2005 after interning with the Spurs before his stops with the Pelicans and Thunder.

Williams accumulated a 173-221 record across five seasons as New Orleans' head coach. He led the franchise to the playoffs twice but was fired after failing to advance from the first round in 2015.

The Notre Dame product also joined the U.S. coaching staff led by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski in 2013. He helped guide the team to a gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August.

It marked Williams' return to the sideline after a multimonth absence following the death of his wife, Ingrid, in a February car crash. He took a leave of absence from the Thunder after the personal tragedy and eventually decided to make his exit permanent.

He gave an emotional speech at his wife's funeral service that focused on his grief but also the importance of forgiveness:

Marc Stein of ESPN.com reported in July that Williams intended on getting another opportunity to serve as a head coach, but the time in San Antonio will allow him to remain close to his in-laws, who have helped take care of the couple's five children.

The ESPN report also included comments the basketball lifer made to the outlet's Hannah Storm about how he deals with the lingering sadness:

"

Yeah, I still text her, and it's not like I know she's going to answer -- I know she's not going to answer -- but it's just part of what I do. I'll go outside at night and I'll just look up in the sky and just start talking to her. When you've been with somebody for 26 years and married for 20, you would have to just be around us to know what we were like. So I find myself doing everything that I can that I knew she would do.

"

Along with his role in the San Antonio organization, there's a good chance he can remain a key cog in the United States' staff moving forward. That's because Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is taking the reins from Krzyzewski following the team's latest run to a gold medal.