J-Speaks: The NBA Losses a Proud Coach to Cancer

From 1989-96, the Minnesota Timberwolves were one of the worst franchises in the National Basketball Association. The hiring of an in state collegiate standout selection and the selection of unknown high school phenome eventually turn them into a contender. That head coach would return for his second stint with the team as their President of Basketball Operations and eventually their head coach. Over the past two seasons, he would help to orchestrate the rebuilding of the team back into the playoff contender that they were in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Unfortunately he would not be able to see the finished product as his lost the greatest battle that he ever faced.

Early Sunday morning, Oct. 25, Philip Daniel “Flip” Saunders, head coach and President of Basketball Operations for the Minnesota Timberwolves passed away from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 60 years old.

He is survived by his wife of 37 years Debbie; son Ryan, who is an assistant coach on the T’Wolves staff; daughter Mindy and twin daughters Kim and Rachel. All four children attended the University of Minnesota.

The former Minnesota Golden Gopher and Columbus, OH native was diagnosed with this form of cancer on Aug. 11.

He underwent treatment and the question was will he be able to coach the upcoming NBA season?

After being hospitalized following complications back in September, T’Wolves owner Glen Taylor made the announcement that Saunders would not coach the 2015-16 season for the Timberwolves and named head coach on an interim basis former T’Wolves player Sam Mitchell and the duties in the front office went to general manager Milt Newton.

When Saunders passed away last month, the team named Mitchell, a former NBA Coach of the Year with the Toronto Raptors in 2007 and who played 10 of his 14 NBA seasons with the Timberwolves the new head coach and Newton the team’s new GM.

To truly bring the impact that Saunders had on the T’Wolves organization into perspective, 15-time All-Star and future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett, a.k.a. “KG” on his Facebook page a photograph of himself in a hooded shirt sitting in front of the parking spot in the team’s parking lot staring at his coaches’ name plate on the wall and underneath the photo “KG” wrote a message: “Forever in my heart…”

“The NBA family is mourning today over the tragic loss of our friend and colleague, Flip Saunders,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement back on Oct. 26.

“Flip’s untimely passing has left a gaping hole in the fabric of our league. Flip was a beloved figure around the NBA, nowhere more than in Minnesota, demonstrating a genuine and consistent passion for his players, his team and the game. On behalf of the NBA, we offer our most sincere condolences to Flip’s wife, Debbie, their four children and the entire Minnesota Timberwolves organization.”

Saunders basketball journey began at Cuyahoga Heights High School in suburban Cleveland, OH where he became an All-State great. In 1973, his senior year, he averaged 32.0 points per contest leading the state and being named Ohio’s Class A High School Basketball Player of the Year.

He would go on to play at the University of Minnesota where he started 101 out of 163 games with the Golden Gophers, teaming up alongside future NBA stars like Ray Williams; NBA champion Mychal Thompson; Hall of Famer, three-time NBA champion future boss with the T’Wolves and current Houston Rockets’ head coach Kevin McHale and Osborne Lockhart.

Saunders then moved on to coaching beginning at Golden Valley Lutheran College, where he went an impressive 92-13, including 56-0 mark at home in four seasons.

In 1981, Saunders served as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Minnesota and help to lead the Golden Gophers to the Big Ten title.

Five seasons later, Saunders moved on to be an assistant at the University of Tulsa for two seasons.

He then tried his coaching hand at the then Continental Basketball Association (CBA) as the leader of the Rapid City Thrillers in the 1988-89 season where he served under former head coach of the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors Eric Musselman, who was the team manager. Musselman’s father, Bill was the one who recruited Flip to attend the University of Minnesota when he was the head coach.

The next season, Saunders became the head coach of the La Crosse Catbirds from 1989-94, capturing two CBA championships before moving on again to be the head man of the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

Along with being head coach of Catbirds, Saunders was the GM from 1991-93 and served as team president from 1991-94.

When his CBA coaching career concluded, Saunders amassed seven straight seasons of 30 wins or more; two CBA titles (1990 and 1992); two CBA Coach of the Year Awards (1989 and 1992) and 23 players who played for him got a call up to the NBA. Above all else, he finished with 253 career CBA wins, which ranked 2^nd in the league’s history.

On May 11, 1995, McHale, who was now the Vice President of Basketball Operations of the Timberwolves hired his former Golden Gopher teammate Saunders to work under him as the GM and seven months and seven days later he was named head coach of the team replacing Bill Blair after the team started the 1995-96 season 6-14.

The team finished just 20-42 under Saunders, but Garnett, who the T’Wolves drafted fifth overall in the 1995 draft out of Farragut Academy in Chicago, IL really was emerging as a front line player in the second half of the season. He would average 10.4 points and 6.3 boards and 1.6 blocks in his rookie season.

In the 1996 NBA draft, the Timberwolves added another star player in acquiring the rights to future All-Star guard Stephon Marbury, who was drafted No. 4 overall out of Georgia Tech for future NBA champion Ray Allen, whose draft rights went to the Milwaukee Bucks.

The addition of Marbury alongside Garnett and forward Tom Gugliotta, the T’Wolves in Saunders first full season as head coach went 40-42 in the 1996-97 season and made the playoffs for the first time in team history, they lost to the eventual Western Conference runner-up Houston Rockets in three-game sweep.

That season, Garnett, who along with Gugliotta became the first pair of T’Wolves to be named to the All-Star team that season averaged 18.5 points and 9.6 boards per contest and Marbury averaged 17.7 points and 8.6 assists in his rookie season.

The next season, the Timberwolves posted their first winning season in franchise history going 45-37. In the playoffs, they took the defending Western Conference champion Seattle Supersonics to the brink in the opening round, but eventually fell in five games.

The team’s best season in terms of victories came in 1999-2000 when they captured their first 50-win season, but fell again in the Quarterfinals to the West runner up the Portland Trail Blazers in four games.

Over the next three seasons, the Timberwolves won 47, 50 and a new franchise record 51 games, but had early playoff exits each time.

The team’s best season came in 2003-04 when “KG” got some much needed help with the additions of two-time NBA champion guard Sam Cassell, guard Latrell Sprewell and center Ervin Johnson.

Garnett won his only MVP Award of his career that season with 24.2 points, 13.9 boards and five assists per contest in leading the T’Wolves to a franchise record 58 wins and the top seed in the West and the second best record in the league.

Saunders also that season was the head coach of the Western Conference All-Star team.

They garnered their first playoff series win by taking down the Denver Nuggets and then rookie forward Carmelo Anthony in four games. They defeated the Kings in the Semifinals in a thrilling seven game series. At the end of Game 7, Garnett leaped onto the scorer’s table of the Target Center, marking one of the few great moments in the history of the franchise. The magical season for the T’Wolves ended at the hands of Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals in six games.

The 2004-05 season was supposed to be one where the T’Wolves got over the hump, but instead were plagued by internal problems, especially with the contracts of Sprewell, Cassell and Troy Hudson. A change was needed in a major way and McHale made the difficult call and fired his former teammate Saunders and replaced him as head coach.

Since his departure, the T’Wolves have not made the playoffs in the last nine seasons.

On July 21, 2005 Saunders was hired as the new head coach of the Detroit Pistons replacing Larry Brown, who moved on to coach the New York Knicks.

In year one under Saunders, the defending Eastern Conference champions won a franchise record 64 games, which included a franchise record 27 road victories.

Saunders served as head coach of the Eastern Conference All-Star team, where he coached four of the five Piston starters in starting guards Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton, starting forward Rasheed Wallace and starting center Ben Wallace.

“He’s a player’s coach. No ego. No nothing,” Billups said of Saunders back in 2006. “He’s an offensive guru. I knew that it would be a perfect marriage.

They got through the Bucks in Round 1 of the playoffs 4-1. They survived the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games, but fell in the Eastern Conference Finals to the eventual NBA champion Miami Heat 4-2.

The Pistons went 53-29 the next season and made it back to the Conference Finals for the fifth straight season, but the Cavs got them winning the final four games of the series to send the Pistons packing in six games.

The 2008-09 season saw the Pistons win 59 games and advanced back to the Conference Finals for a sixth straight season. Once again, they would fall again in six games to the eventual NBA champion, this time it was the Boston Celtics, led by Garnett, Allen and Paul Pierce.

On June 3, 2008 Saunders was fired by the Pistons and two-time champion and president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said the team needed a “new voice.”

After taking a year off from coaching, Saunders signed a reported four-year $18 million deal to be the head coach of the Washington Wizards on Apr. 14, 2009.

Unlike his first two coaching stops, Saunders found no success in D.C. as the team never won more than 26 games in his two-plus season. Those 26 wins came in year one under his guidance.

Saunders was fired by the Wizards on Jan. 24, 2012 and was replaced by current Wizards’ head coach Randy Wittman, who used to coach the Timberwolves. Saunders went 51-130 with the Wizards.

Before he returned to the Timberwolves in 2013, Saunders on Apr. 29, 2012 joined the Boston Celtics as an advisor and prior to that worked with ESPN as an NBA analyst.

During his time there, he left a memorable impression, especially on current host of ESPN’s “KIA NBA Countdown” Sage Steele and former NBA player and head coach Doug Collins.

On the Oct. 28 edition of the show, Steele talked about one of the most memorable conversations she had with him about Garnett asking him about his reputation as a dirty player.

Saunders smiled at Steele and he said to her, “Let me tell you about KG.” About 15 minutes later the conversation continued and it had nothing to do about what he did on the hardwood. The entire conversation consisted of stories of over a dozen stories about how the relationship between the future Hall of Famer and the all-time leader in head coaching wins in T’Wolves history was like a father and son one.

About a week later, she would find on her desk in her cubicle at ESPN’s main headquarters in Bristol, CT a bobble head of KG with a note from Saunders saying, “Give this to your kids. This is the kind of man you should want them to cheer for.”

Steele really got emotional about Saunders when she talked about the aforementioned photograph that “KG” put of himself sitting in Saunders parking spot on his Facebook page.

“It really hit home for me and so many people. Their relationship was so much more than player coach,” she said of “KG” and Saunders.

“To call it rare I think is a massive understatement plain and simple. There’s a pretty good chance that you will never meet a nicer more caring person in the NBA than ‘Flip’ Saunders. Kevin Garnett and all of us who were fortunate enough to have known him, Philip Daniel Saunders, will miss him dearly.

Collins echoed those same feelings on the broadcast when he talked about how Saunders invited his son Chris to training camp with the T’Wolves back in the late 1990s.

In his senior season at Duke University, the younger Collins broke his leg and the chances of being drafted into the league really shrunk so he went over and played in Europe.

Saunders said yes to giving the young Collins an invite to training camp and in a pre-season game against his father’s team the Pistons, Chris hit a three-pointer to close the 1^st half and he looked over to his dad and said “Aren’t I in the scouting report. You know I can shoot the ball dad.”

“Flip was the ultimate coach. He was a gentleman, but an incredible competitor,” Collins said of Saunders back on Oct. 28.

In his final act before his untimely passing, Saunders came back to the T’Wolves on May 3, 2013 as President of Basketball Operations and on June 5, 2014 was named head coach.

In the 2013 draft, the team traded guard Trey Burke, who they selected with the No. 9 overall pick for the No. 14 overall pick in swingman Shabazz Muhammad out of UCLA and No. 21 overall pick in center Gorgui Dieng out of Louisville.

On Aug. 23, 2014 in a three-team deal involving the Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers, the T’Wolves traded Kevin Love to the Cavs and acquired forward/guard Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft. In that same draft, they selected at No. 13 overall guard Zach LaVine, who is also out of UCLA.

While they did not make the playoffs for the 11^th consecutive season, Wiggins won the 2014 Rookie of the Year and during the 2014 All-Star Weekend, LaVine won the 2014 Slam Dunk Contest.

To fill the void of a veteran presence, the Timberwolves acquired Garnett from the Brooklyn Nets after he waived his no-trade clause

Having the worst record gave the T’Wolves the highest odds at 25 percent to win the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft at the 2015 draft lottery and on May 19, the team won  that top pick and used it on center Karl Anthony-Towns, taking him No. 1 overall back on June 25.

They also acquired the rights through a trade with the Cavs guard Tyus Jones from the National Champion Duke Blue Devils.

In free agency, the Timberwolves signed veteran guard Andre Miller and former NBA champion with the Pistons in forward Tayshaun Prince.

On Oct. 25, the NBA not only lost a proud member of its family, it lost one of the greatest offensive minds in league history. It lost a man who took a franchise that was a perennial loser and turned it into a playoff regular and had them on the doorstep of making it into The Finals. He returned to that team and along with management built it back to where their future is a lot better than it was a few years prior. More than anything else, he had a way of impacting people from the players he coached, to upper management to young people he was around the most important thing that they can be given, his time and his focus.

Philip Daniel “Flip” Saunders gave everything he had to the game of basketball and to his family and gained the love and respect of all those he was able to be around and it made him a winner on the hardwood as a collegiate, as a minor league head coach and executive and as a pro head coach, where he went 654-594 with the Timberwolves, Pistons and Wizards and as an executive.

“The NBA lost a beloved brother, former coach. Really successful in this league. Touched a lot of different players in three different stops. I want to see his team [Timberwolves] play inspired in tribute to him this year,” Jalen Rose said back on Oct. 28.  

Information, statistics and quotations are courtesy of 10/26/15 ESPN.com article by Brian Windhorst, Tim MacMahon and The Associated Press “Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders dies of Cancer at Age 60;” 10/28/15 7 p.m. edition of KIA “NBA Countdown” on ESPN hosted by Sage Steele, Doug Collins and Jalen Rose; Facebook page of Kevin Garnett; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Saunders; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Timberwolves.