Camden wrote:Lip, I appreciate your positive/optimistic reasoning on Ryan Saunders, but I can't honestly agree with any of your numbered points, especially the Brad Stevens comparison which I think is a pretty big reach considering the success Stevens had on a major level prior to his time in Boston.
I think it's entirely possible that you're falling victim to the likability of Ryan as well as the emotional aspect considering he's Flip's son and it seems Flip was good to you in the assumed limited time you had with him.
I guess the hope here is that the extremely rare outcome happens. What I mean by that is that there are very few successful head coaches that come to mind that did NOT have at least one of these in their resume:
a.) NBA playing career.
b.) NCAA/Euro head coaching experience.
c.) Experience as a lead assistant/associate head coach in the NBA.
Saunders' most ideal and best case scenario is becoming Eric Spoelstra, and there's no way to know for sure if Spoelstra is the coach that he grew to be if it wasn't for Pat Riley and Stan Van Gundy's mentoring as well as having LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh on his roster.
Just so we're all clear, Minnesota doesn't have any of the above around Saunders. Nothing even close. But we do have Glen Taylor. And Andrew Wiggins. Oof.
Cam - Those are all fair critiques of my post. Honestly, I'm not happy with the decision to hire Ryan. I just noted some of what I'd consider positive aspects of the decision - perhaps for my own sanity. :) But I don't believe for a minute that Ryan Saunders was the best head coaching candidate available and willing to come here. And that's the part that bothers me. Maybe this was Rosas accommodating KAT. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was Rosas wanting to take a season to evaluate the team before settling on a head coach other than Ryan. Whatever the thinking, this hiring decision is on Rosas. It's not a great start for him, but I still don't feel nearly as upset as I was when the Wolves hired Thibodeau.
Right now, Rosas has to focus on revamping the front office with a new GM, new assistant GMs and an overhaul of the team's scouting staff so the organization can start making good player personnel decisions, starting with this year's draft. At the same time, the organization needs to surround Ryan with a group of experienced top-flight assistant coaches.
