On Sunday, October 25, 2015, the Minnesota Timberwolves lost a father figure, the NBA lost a respected coach and the world lost what many would describe as a good man.
It’s hard to find the right thing to say about someone that you never knew but still influenced something that was important to you during your formative years. Flip Saunders was that man. This isn’t about someone that I had a relationship with, it’s about a man lost too soon. A man who, for all his coaching limitations, was well regarding and respected around the league.
We cannot quantify the loss that his loved ones will feel. But it doesn’t seem wrong to say that some of his players are among those loved ones. How many coaches can you say that about with confidence?
“It’s beyond that… What we have over here is a family. We lost our dad yesterday,” said guard Ricky Rubio.
Saunders was brought into the Wolves organization in the 1990s as a general manager, eventually adding head coaching duties during Kevin Garnett’s first season. The two formed a great relationship, eventually leading the team to their first ever playoff birth. Building on the team’s early success with one of the all-time greats in Garnett, they eventually morphed into a Western Conference force that was within Striking Distance of the 2004 NBA Finals.
The following year, Flip went to Detroit to lead the defending champion Pistons, then a few years later moved to the Washington Wizards. And while he made his mark, winning over 700 games, in more than one location, I can’t help but only think of Flip in Minnesota.
After his time away, Saunders came back to Minnesota. He helped transition away from the Kevin Love version of the Timberwolves and built a foundation for something greater. Zach LaVine, Andrew Wiggins, Shabazz Muhammad. The gradual erasing of the stain we know as KAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHNN!!!
He also brought back Kevin Garnett, the long-lost son that stands as the loan figure of triumph in the history of the Timberwolves (not counting JR Rider’s dunk supremacy). No one else could have done that.
And that is the story of hope that is Flip Saunders. A man gone, but not forgotten. A legacy forged, but a story that is not yet completed. Because these Timberwolves are Flip’s Wolves and the foundation he laid will echo into the future and write the yet undetermined history of the Minnesota franchise.
So let us all look to the future, not with a sadness for what has passed, but with a joy and wonder of what will yet unfold from this great, unfinished masterpiece of Flip Saunders.
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