Timberwolves Coach Passes Away

Philip Daniel Saunders was born February 23, 1955, in Cleveland and was a basketball star at Cuyahoga Heights High School.

Please share your condolences in the comments, and visit SBNation’s Minnesota Timberwolves blog Canis Hoopus to send a few positive vibes during this hard time. “There’s not one person that you could talk to to get to say one bad thing about Flip Saunders”.

Saunders, who was 60, was also the team’s president of basketball operations. At the time, doctors had believed that his illness was “treatable and curable”.

Gov. Mark Dayton also issued as statement Sunday. “I still didn’t know our team. He was a tremendous coach, but an even better husband and father and my thoughts and prayers are with his entire family during this hard time”.

He coached the Timberwolves to the 2004 Western Conference final before being fired and eventually replaced by Dwane Casey, and Saunders led Detroit to a 64-win season in 2005-06.

“My heart is heavy for Flip’s wife Debbie, son Ryan, who will carry on the basketball coaching torch, and daughters Mindy, Rachel and Kimberly”. Sports, the president of the basketball operations and head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves was undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in the past month. He said (Teague) just didn’t understand the culture of the state of Minnesota.

The nickname, Flip, stuck, all his life.

From Musselman, he learned his attention to detail and the intensity required to win. After a meeting, they did “a lot of shooting” and had a health and performance day. After coaching for 11 seasons in college, he made the leap to the CBA.

“When you stop learning, that’s when you stop”, he said in 2000.

“Our friendship grew over the years and we became very close, but I never felt like he treated me better than anyone else”.

While there, his playbook grew to legendary thickness and where he toted along a little sign with each move. “Just like the dinosaurs”. The Pistons were perennial underachievers following that first season, however, and Saunders was sacked after the Pistons lost in the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.

Working his way up from the backwaters of minor basketball leagues, Saunders won over 1,000 games in his coaching career, including amassing a 654-592 record in his 17 years as an NBA coach, coaching the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Detroit Pistons and the Washington Wizards, via ESPN.

The Wolves open the season Wednesday night at the Los Angeles Lakers.

Tributes have been pouring in for Saunders.

Yeo said he met Saunders only once but was affected by Saunders’ positivity after sending him a text message after learning he had been diagnosed with cancer. A year later, he named himself to coach the team as well after Rick Adelman chose to retire. He took over again as coach last season to direct a major rebuilding of a young team that finished 16-66.

“I played against Flip in college and later convinced him to join our staff at Tulsa, although I left two days later”.

All that in the past had been forgotten and forgiven.

In a statement, the team’s owner Glen Taylor said the organization was “devastated” by Saunders’ passing.