“Dave got a call from Don Wattrick and asked me, ‘Would I mind leaving the room,’” recalls Thorn. “Fifteen, 20 minutes later, he called me back in and said he had just been named a coach of the Pistons.” DeBusschere was 24 years old at the time . DeBusschere’s hiring as coach was strange because there was a far more qualified candidate within the organization. Earl Lloyd had been in the running to replace Wolf. Lloyd had previously been a Pistons assistant coach under McGuire, and was still employed as a team scout. He had the experience of playing in the NBA for a decade, as the first Black player to appear in a game in the league’s history. In his capacity as a scout, he had been influential in the Pistons drafting Howell. Joe Caldwell, who was Detroit’s lone rookie that 1964-65 season, had become close to Lloyd. “I was kinda like under Earl Lloyd, more or less, in training camp,” says Caldwell. “And I thought he was a man for the job.”