60WinTim wrote:So here's the scoop: Flip really thought he was going to be back coaching to start the season.
Jon Krawczynski ?@APkrawczynski 8m8 minutes ago
Wolves say Flip remains in the hospital after complications from treatment. He is undergoing further testing and treatment
I'm very sad to read this. My thoughts are with Flip and his family. Like him or hate him, he's one of us. As far as the coach going forward? I'm assuming Sam will run with this opportunity. IF the team rallies/performs well, it would be hard to pull him back and let Flip coach again. Crappy circumstances, but great opportunity for Sam.
Flip is guilty of being optimistic about his ability to do all this. Is that selfish? I don't know about that maybe. Maybe not being prudent but Milt is reasonably qualified to do the GM duties while Flip is away and Mitchell is qualified to be the HC as well. I find a lot of people tend to be too optimistic about what they can handle and a lot of times it backfires. Flip has really taken on rebuilding this franchise and I personally find it a little hard to fault him for wanting to keep rolling with everything. Of course I also believe Flip has considered replacements as HC the past few months but hasn't found the right guy. Most posters here and most fans doubt that which I wont argue with I am just sharing where I am at.
Flip and Glen have done some things over the past few years to make this franchise look like its on the right path. Mayo center, hiring more guys for the medical/training staff and particularly adding Arnie Kander this season. He hired Penberthy last year. There is some legit stuff this franchise has done to show some motion towards being something closer to a top level franchise than mediocre or what it's been for a few years which is bad. I've been railing on getting a D-league team but maybe they have been planing on how to have one of the best d-league franchises facilities out there and it will take time idk. D-league is a conversation for another thread.
I know people want to see a new coach I do as well but I don't know if I want Flip to hire someone he isn't really sold on just to be somewhat of an upgrade over Mitchell who has a legit resume for the job as iterm which was sort of the worst case scenario. I probably sound to much like a homer with these posts but I also try and stay a little realistic to in context with what I know or maybe don't know. Flip took over a tricky situation when he took this job and it's continued to be that way with something significant to overcome each year. He gets paid to do all that but I think we should acknowledge this is another tough one for Flip and the franchise to navigate. Hopefully it comes out well especially when it comes to Flip's health.
The Wolves actually get a "free trial" on a new head coach with Sam. Once Flip is back, he can let Sam run with it if everything is going well, or take over the reigns and coach until he is ready to bring in someone else.
It's also a great opportunity for Milt. Flip has done all the heavy lifting on player transactions, but there are a few loose ends to be cleaned up before the season begins, and that will be Milt's responsibility.
It's not that I think Sam is necessarily a downgrade from Flip. I'm sort of neutral on his value vs. Saunders, but I don't think Flip is a great coach to begin with, so the bar is kind of low there.
My larger problem is with Flip not resigning from at least the coaching position once he found out about the cancer back in late spring/early summer. That would have given him, Milt, and Glen plenty of time to interview and select a new coach. Even if Flip's prognosis was good at the time, I mean c'mon, the rigors of an 82-game schedule and travel is hard enough as it is. Of course the body would have still needed time to recover from such trauma as cancer and chemo, even if everything had gone swimmingly well.
I feel bad for Flip the person. I'm just disappointed that he didn't take a step back and think about the longer term health of both himself AND the franchise.
The Wolves have now had another tough situation with the coaching duties. Ramos last year wasn't too great either and Kahn handled that somewhat strangely and Rambis didn't seem to help either. Then Adelman's final year was tough with his wife being sick. Now less than two years we are in another situation where we don't know what will be happening a few months from now when it comes to a coach. Will Flip be back this season? Will he coach next season? Does he hire a new guy? Is Mitchell an option to stay on? I think many people assumed and I seem to remember Lip sharing info that one reason Flip wasn't interested in hiring Karl was worry about his age and health etc. now we end up with that problem with Flip. It's a tough situation. Flip is to blame however let's remember that him taking over the team was a pretty brilliant move last summer when it came to the Love situation.
Glen stepped in here and while it sounds like something would have happened anyway with whatever is up with Flip's health but Glen sounds to have really told Sam and Milt etc to back off Flip in a pretty significant way. Glen has always wanted Flip to only do one job. Glen has more reason than ever to want Flip to take a step back from coaching permanently. It's really unfortunate that this franchise that has been one pretty much one in constant flux at one level or another since Flip left is now thrown into it once more when it seemed like there was going to be at the very least more stability. That's the way life goes I guess but as a fan that's gone through the last few years of this franchise it's kinda tough. Obviously Flip's health is the main concern and that's part of what makes all this a downer.
The interim decision still would have been Mitchell even if Flip stepped down when he found out. I really don't see the needle moving a whole lot here from a basketball standpoint in any scenario based on our owner. I hope Flip gets better quickly for his sake and for our team's sake. I love Sam the guy but I have never been confident in him the coach or player.
If he found out about it in May, it's frustrating that he didn't go after a guy like Malone then. We had Malone down the stretch last year as a consultant. He didn't get hired on to Denver until June. He had a track record of reaching difficult players like Cousins and getting them to buy in to a system. Most importantly he coached them to be a good defensive team without very good defensive weapons outside of Gay. We're not getting the perfect coach because the organization hasn't earned that guy yet. We needed a guy to be on the Brooks path of developing our players and then moving on when they are playing for titles. I think Malone could have been that guy and who knows if he's a championship caliber coach or not. He probably wasn't, but he also got canned during a period he was missing his only all-star. Flip seems to be holding out for the guy he thinks is gonna take us to the finish line when he just needs to give a really good coach (outside of Thibs) a 4 year deal to come in and develop the team and go from there.
From basketball views, I always thought that Mitchel was going to be the next guy. He's a country club guy that everybody loves, and won't battle with Flip or Taylor. Didn't expect it like this though.
But really when were talking months here, I don't really see a situation or reason why Sam wouldn't just coach the whole year. If they are in the hunt somehow, it wouldn't make sense to make a coaching change, and if they stink again, and Flip takes back over, it would pretty much put the nail in the coffin for Mitchells coaching career, which I doubt Flip would want to do.
But yea like it or not, we might be getting back to country club status quo.
thedoper wrote:The interim decision still would have been Mitchell even if Flip stepped down when he found out. I really don't see the needle moving a whole lot here from a basketball standpoint in any scenario based on our owner. I hope Flip gets better quickly for his sake and for our team's sake. I love Sam the guy but I have never been confident in him the coach or player.
Doper, I agree with all you points. And I'll add this. Whatever criticisms many of us have directed at Flip's coaching last season, it's hard to criticize his tenure to date as President of Basketball Operation (PBO). In two years he has taken this team from a veteran team going nowhere on the verg of losing its one all-star caliber player to a team poised to rise with one of the best young cores in the League. He's done it through some excellent evaluation of draft prospectsalong with exceptional patience and savvy navigating his way through the Love situation. He has been accessible and open with fans and the media and has brought a refreshing air of optimism to the franchise and fan base.
So all we can do is hope and pray for Flip's complete and speedy recovery - for his sake, his family's sake and for the sake of the franchise. Get well soon Flip!!!
Been a while, but I figured I'd throw my two cents about this.
I like Sam Mitchell, but lymphoma or not, it's very predictable of Flip to go this route and it explains why he didn't really try to find other candidates.
Now it may be insensitive of me to say this in light of Flip's health, but I gotta get at Flip for this. whether the type of lymphoma was treatable or not, lymphoma is lymphoma. That's the biggest fight he has. He knew he had this during the draft process. He still kept trying to do everything even though he wasn't physically gonna be capable enough to hold up, and yet he STILL tried to do it anyway instead of taking the coaching search more seriously. As admirable as it comes off, Flip wasn't doing right by himself or the team by doing that. I don't know if he cost us a big name, but man there's gotta be a young hungry assistant somewhere who doesn't think three pointers are the devil who would have taken a crack at this job.
Unless Flip is purely operating as an owner or part of an ownership group, I don't need him back here, healthy or not. Until someone in the organization says to himself, "I have to break this habit. I have to end this cycle," Even moves like this are gonna be met with mixed reviews. The closest thing to breaking this perpetual cycle would have actually be hiring Ryan Saunders and throwing him into the deep end. At least philosophically speaking he doesn't appear to have Country Club tendencies, just Country Club bloodlines.
