Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:He'll need an experienced staff.


Now if anyone was disappointed in the process, nothing was more of a ruse than the coaching Flip conducted... for himself. We'll see who Ryan's assistants will be.

Good point. Flip naming himself head coach was the last straw that prompted my angry email to the Wolves front office criticizing that decision as well as Flip's decision to draft Bazz. And it was that angry email that led to Flip calling me and then having lunch with me. At lunch, Flip told me that he had offered the head coaching position to Izzo. He said Izzo accepted but then changed his mind the next day. Flip also told me that day that he didn't think Hoiberg was ready to be an NBA head coach at the time. Bottom line in my view is that Flip wanted to coach the team.

Now back to the current situation. While I wanted to see a sincere thorough search for the best head coach available, I'll offer these positives about hiring Ryan:

1. He's had a lot of NBA assistant coaching experience in spite of his young age. And he grew up around the NBA in an NBA basketball household. He's not much younger than Brad Stevens was when he was hired as Boston's head coach. And although Stevens, unlike Ryan, had experience as a head coach (in college), he had no NBA coaching or playing experience. Stevens has, of course, been an excellent head coach for the Celtics.

2. The Wolves one star player around whom the team will be built love Ryan and really wanted the Wolves to hire him as the team's head coach. That's a big deal. Getting buy-in from the team's best player is always in important consideration for any NBA team. It's particularly important for the Wolves now because this organization needs to do everything it can, within reason, to ensure that KAT is fully invested in being here so the organization has enough time to build around him. His long-term contract is the most important part of that, but keeping him committed to staying here is also important to help avoid an Anthony Davis situation. Considering KAT's sentiments in major decisions like this is part of that.

3. Ryan's stint as interim head coach was generally positive in that the Wolves spacing and pace of play on offense improved noticeably. We looked much more like a modern NBA team on offense under Ryan than we did under Thibodeau. The team's record under Ryan doesn't tell us much in my view because of all the injuries, especially the fact that the team was without it's best defensive player and 3-point shooter, RoCo, the entire time. There were other injuries as well and the fact that the team was out of the playoff hunt for most of Ryan's short tenure, which can't help but impact the team's competitive intensity at some level. That said, I thought the team played really hard under Ryan.

4. Beyond KAT's obvious affection for Ryan, it's clear that all the players like and respect Ryan. That's important. The candidates to avoid are those with a history of alienating players. Kurt Rambis is a good example. The main reason I disliked the decision to hire Rambis was his brief stint as interim Lakers' head coach. It was widely reported that the players eventually rebelled against him during that stint.

So I'm not down over this decision. I'll be looking for positive signs in who he hires as his assistants.

I agree with your points outside of #3 we played slower and shot less 3s under Saunders than Thibs. It might be because Saunders isn't yelling out a play everytime so it seems like we were playing faster but we weren't. I remember Abe got close to 20 games where the wolves shot less 3s than their opponents. Now Cov was hurt but Saunders came from his dad, Mitchell and Whitman who all loved the long 2s. Saunders said the right things about the modern offense but none of that translated. Not saying that won't/can't change but it's worrying.

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.

Did Ryan ever coach under Rick Adelman?

bleedspeed177 wrote:Did Ryan ever coach under Rick Adelman?

Nope he was assistant under Flip in Washington, than Whitmam in Washington, His dad again in Minnesota, Mitchell and thibs

kekgeek1 wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:Did Ryan ever coach under Rick Adelman?

Nope he was assistant under Flip in Washington, than Whitmam in Washington, His dad again in Minnesota, Mitchell and thibs

OOOF!

We've discussed the lineage angle (coaching tree) angle with Saunders before. It's not good. Cam is right... the team would basically be rewriting recent history with Saunders.

The Wolves are already an outlier because of how it's going to need to (re)build. The best player leads the league in post-ups. That's already going against the grain. With how bigs are manhandled down low, it's already tough for that to work in close games or playoff games. I think I'd actually prefer if Saunders was more of an ideological or gimmick guy than the steady Eddie guy we've seen thus far.

In some ways, the team needs something radical to pull off what it wants to pull off... I think Saunders, even with all his inherent good capabilities, is anything but radical.

Well, whatever process we did to end up with Thibs in a dual role didn't work and most of our previous GM/coaching decisions have been failures. Screw the process, we got Ryan and I'm happy about it. I do think it would be nice if all the assistants are let go, so Ryan can choose who he wants.

The Vikings better be good this year because the Wolves and Wild are going to be the Wolves and Wild!

The Twins aren't a mirage, could this be a sign of the end of times? If yes, I just wanna say it's been a fun, yet miserable ride fellas.

kekgeek1 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

WildWolf2813 wrote:He'll need an experienced staff.


Now if anyone was disappointed in the process, nothing was more of a ruse than the coaching Flip conducted... for himself. We'll see who Ryan's assistants will be.

Good point. Flip naming himself head coach was the last straw that prompted my angry email to the Wolves front office criticizing that decision as well as Flip's decision to draft Bazz. And it was that angry email that led to Flip calling me and then having lunch with me. At lunch, Flip told me that he had offered the head coaching position to Izzo. He said Izzo accepted but then changed his mind the next day. Flip also told me that day that he didn't think Hoiberg was ready to be an NBA head coach at the time. Bottom line in my view is that Flip wanted to coach the team.

Now back to the current situation. While I wanted to see a sincere thorough search for the best head coach available, I'll offer these positives about hiring Ryan:

1. He's had a lot of NBA assistant coaching experience in spite of his young age. And he grew up around the NBA in an NBA basketball household. He's not much younger than Brad Stevens was when he was hired as Boston's head coach. And although Stevens, unlike Ryan, had experience as a head coach (in college), he had no NBA coaching or playing experience. Stevens has, of course, been an excellent head coach for the Celtics.

2. The Wolves one star player around whom the team will be built love Ryan and really wanted the Wolves to hire him as the team's head coach. That's a big deal. Getting buy-in from the team's best player is always in important consideration for any NBA team. It's particularly important for the Wolves now because this organization needs to do everything it can, within reason, to ensure that KAT is fully invested in being here so the organization has enough time to build around him. His long-term contract is the most important part of that, but keeping him committed to staying here is also important to help avoid an Anthony Davis situation. Considering KAT's sentiments in major decisions like this is part of that.

3. Ryan's stint as interim head coach was generally positive in that the Wolves spacing and pace of play on offense improved noticeably. We looked much more like a modern NBA team on offense under Ryan than we did under Thibodeau. The team's record under Ryan doesn't tell us much in my view because of all the injuries, especially the fact that the team was without it's best defensive player and 3-point shooter, RoCo, the entire time. There were other injuries as well and the fact that the team was out of the playoff hunt for most of Ryan's short tenure, which can't help but impact the team's competitive intensity at some level. That said, I thought the team played really hard under Ryan.

4. Beyond KAT's obvious affection for Ryan, it's clear that all the players like and respect Ryan. That's important. The candidates to avoid are those with a history of alienating players. Kurt Rambis is a good example. The main reason I disliked the decision to hire Rambis was his brief stint as interim Lakers' head coach. It was widely reported that the players eventually rebelled against him during that stint.

So I'm not down over this decision. I'll be looking for positive signs in who he hires as his assistants.

I agree with your points outside of #3 we played slower and shot less 3s under Saunders than Thibs. It might be because Saunders isn't yelling out a play everytime so it seems like we were playing faster but we weren't. I remember Abe got close to 20 games where the wolves shot less 3s than their opponents. Now Cov was hurt but Saunders came from his dad, Mitchell and Whitman who all loved the long 2s. Saunders said the right things about the modern offense but none of that translated. Not saying that won't/can't change but it's worrying.

There are a lot of things we don't really know but we make sense of what we can. Sometimes what we decide based on the information can at times become what we believe is reality. Its not necessarily a bad thing its just sort of what happens. So lets look at a few things you mentioned.

Hoiberg's time at Chicago can't lead me to make a definitive judgement on him as an NBA coach but...Its also not hard to make a case Flip was right about Fred as an NBA head coach. Hoiberg is now at his 2nd legacy college job in Nebraska making over 4 million a year. Man some people have it pretty good.

Flip doing both the coaching job and being the lead executive did seem problematic. The thing is though we never saw it play out. Flip did seem to be working towards having Milt Newton as more than just a right hand guy that just did his dirty work. Whether Milt would have been good in that role IDK. I've gotten the sense from reporting and from things Flip said himself he was open to thoughts coming from other people. He met with Lip who was just a season ticket holder. I'd say the guy was willing to listen to more than just a few trusted people.

Would Flip been a pretty good coach? We don't know. Would he have been a stick int he mud long 2's guy? Thats what his history said but its possible he would have made adjustments. Flip in the past was also pretty good at getting the most out of his roster and his best player... Lets say we hired a solid vet coach...lets say Vogal and then after a year said...nope we need someone else. Is a year enough time to really know if a coach is the right guy? Sometimes yes but year with an incredibly young roster (which Flip had brought in some well thought of vets in Prince and MIller for vet min deals) and was trying to build something. Then he died. Flip never got to fill out his vision. Even if you think ultimately it wouldn't have worked (however you define that) It's sad he didn't get the opportunity. Remember the Wolves were looking like an organization on the rise. He got Arnie Kanter to come to the Wolves etc.

Now lets get to Ryan Saunders. Is he the most qualified guy? Generally speaking no if you just look at a resume of what guys have done and like Abe said who they are doing it under. Over at the Twins building its early and they are off to a heck of a start so everything is great but the reports are that there is a crazy amoun tof collaboration over there. The manager's office is basically a place to sit down and discuss the game the team the roster how to get better. Its a bunch of people with different titles getting in there and trying to get better and win games. I'd guess that is what Rosas is looking to build. Saunders seems pretty open to doing lots of things that people around him will suggest. Ultimately it has to be his decision what to do out there on the court and Rosas has the final decision or personnel etc but both guys seem to get that collaborating makes alot of sense. Does the collaboration alignment sound like it could be some BS? Sure. It also could be worthwhile. Thibs actually talked about collaborating and it sounds like that didn't happen. Thibs game ended up being work hard its all about basketball and winning and the success will be all that matters. Now we are being sold something else. Obviously the results are what matters. Just because a message may sound cliche doesn't mean it doesn't have merit. Saunders may be the right guy for the job and it seems to me that Rosas, Towns, Glen and Probably Saunders all have the same sort of outlook on things. People still have to actually be good at things that make you build basketballwise but it also makes sense to develop and capitalize on a culture of the people in it that matter the most. Towns seems like a legit good guy even though he can be annoying with his goody goody stuff. Glen the same thing. Those qualities can be an asset. Its often something else that actually get in the way.

I'm not saying I'm a full believer in what we have right now,but I'm interested in seeing where it goes. at this point even in its early stages (since Rosas has been hired) I still feel like there may actually be a plan. Not just for the roster but more than that. A new front office hire was announced today and I'd guess there will be some assistant coaching hires coming and we will have a couple new draft picks so we should have some more info to go on. For me this is all something worth embracing. I get the people that aren't. There is reason to be skeptical.

Also one other thing is that defensive coach. Who do you really trust as a defensive coach at this point? Frank Vogal was a defensive guy...Went to Orlando and it was bad. Mike Malone was a defensive coach. How many years did it take that team to be a little better than average? Thibs??? LOL Are some of the defensive guys not good anymore or is it rosters etc? My point is that if we end up with some defensive guy that we haven't really heard of before that may not be a horrible thing. Of course the guy Houston begged to come out of retirement this season to run their defense again seemed like a grinder sort of old school guy so...who knows.

Also Tim Connely stayed with Denver after likely also getting a nice raise. It doesn't sound liek there was really other jobs he would have left for anyway but some teams would have not looked good if he had jumped ship[ to another franchise...

I think his relationships with the players is the factor in the hire. Rosas is in an evaluation period and has no need to rock the boat at this point. He has to get some cred with KAT and KAT seems to be fully team Ryan by all accounts. I'm super skeptics about it too, but understand the thinking in putting Ryan up there.

According to Jon K:

Will be a significant overhaul of the rest of the coaching staff. No names yet. They will be going after Coordinator types. Defensive for sure, maybe Offensive but Ryan definitely more of an Offensive mind. Will also look for strong Player Development guys since Thibs era did not do much work there.

Off. coordinator? Finch?
Def coordinator? Bdzelik
Developmental coach?