Minnesota Sports Forum

https://sports.yahoo.com/set-sidelines-nba-executives-weigh-next-generation-head-coaches-165549990.html

Ryan Saunders, Minnesota: 3 votes

At 31, Saunders is the youngest assistant on this list, but his work ethic has impressed execs monitoring the assistant ranks. Saunders -- the son of the late former NBA coach Flip Saunders -- worked under his father in Washington and Minnesota, and was retained when Tom Thibodeau was hired to coach the 'Wolves in 2016. Saunders has become a valued assistant on Thibodeau's staff (he has coached Minnesota's summer-league entry the past two years) and has drawn praise from Timberwolves officials for his work with young players.

https://dunkingwithwolves.com/2018/03/04/minnesota-timberwolves-should-consider-ryan-saunders-as-next-head-coach/

Here are a few key points as to why he would be a good hire:

He knows and understands his dad's vision and has a lot of good experience under his dad, Thibodeau and Randy Wittman. He's been an assistant head coach at the NBA level for nearly a decade.
He's been the Wolves' Summer League head coach.
By all accounts, he's an extremely hard worker.
He's just 31 years old, and the players reportedly enjoy working with him.
He's a Minnesotan, born in Medina. (Is this a good reason? Maybe not, but let's count it.)

Some good thoughts on Ryan being ready. It just feels like this is a bad situation and feels like just another way we screw up another person that has longtime ties to the organization. We name Ryan the coach. Who is the GM? Will he work well with Ryan? What if this season just sucks with Ryan as the head coach and we have to move on from him and fire him possibly because we gave him a job he wasn't ready for in a very difficult situation with no front office leadership in place? Great we just fucking fired Ryan Saunders. Man that would really suck and it's VERY possible that's how it goes down and I think Ryan as a basketball guy is pretty sharp.

Here's some information some may find interesting. A close friend of mine and his wife lived in China several years before moving back to Mpls last year. My friend's wife is in the fitness business. About a month ago, my friend and his wife got a call from someone they got to know really well in Shanghai. He told them he was moving to Mpls and asked them if they'd help him find a place to live here. He said he was moving here because Jimmy Butler hired him as his personal trainer. I was pretty excited about it because I was going to get to meet him and might have gotten some insights and info over the course of the season.

Of course, my dream of having a connection to Jimmy has died this week with Jimmy's trade demand. I was just thinking about this tonight and it occurred to me that Jimmy's decision to demand a trade must have been a pretty recent one. Again, this guy called my friend and his wife almost 5 weeks ago, fully expecting to move to Minneapolis. Not sure what to make of it. But it would seem that something simmering over time started to suddenly boil over pretty recently. I'm thinking there's a really strange, possibly ugly story somewhere in all of this. I suspect it will come out at some point and we'll just have to add it to the list of mistakes, mishaps and misfortunes that have plagued this franchise for over two decades -- Marbury demanding a trade because he was jealous of KG's contract, Billups leaving because Flip wanted to start the often injured Terrell Brandon, KG hating Wally Z, Malik Sealey getting killed by a drunk driver, the Joe Smith deal that cost this franchise multiple first round picks ... on and on.

Boy...Ryan Saunders and Kevin McHale. Yikes. Talk about a country club attitude. I don't see any way either of those moves work out with the current situation this team is in. These are the kind of C level moves I was talking about earlier. Saunders just isn't ready and frankly shouldn't be coaching a team with a couple players older than he is regardless if the young guys like him. We can't divide the team into young guys and old guys and hope to do well this year. That's setting someone up for failure. Nobody else comes without a multi-year commitment and that's gonna be a bad set back for this team.

Oh and Mark Jackson is a bigger disaster than Thibs when it comes to interaction with front offices.

There's a reason good organizations like GS and Houston moved on from Jackson and McHale and they both significantly improved after those guys left the building.

How long can JVG be out of the game for him to finally not be a coaching consideration? He's the NBA's Gruden at this point.

None of these are good options. They are just different types of disasters waiting to happen than Thibs.

Could we get Jay Larranaga now with the Celtics? He's relatively young but more seasoned than Ryan and he's learning from one of the best young coaches and the Celtics are doing a great job of developing guys like Brown and Tatum.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

TheFuture wrote:Dunn and LaVine will explode this year. Quote me.

LaVine will avg 25 points on 38+ percent 3P shooting. He was the best 3P shooter the Wolves ever had. Wiggins was the one to dump, not LaVine. The Butler trade was a bust. Thins needs to go.

While I agree with the last sentence, the admiration on this board for LaVine as a basketball player continues to baffle me. Best Wolves 3p shooter? Hardly. Not even as good as Kevin Martin, although there was a strong resemblence on the defensive end of the court. NBA players often look quite a bit different in the post knee-surgery portion of their careers (Rose being just one example) and Zach's 34% 3-point shooting last season doesn't bode well for his future. Look, I love Zach as a guy and it sure was fun to watch him jump (not so much fun watching him get totally lost on defense), but not having to pay his $20 million+ on a long-term deal is the cherry on top of the Butler deal.

khans2k5 wrote:Boy...Ryan Saunders and Kevin McHale. Yikes. Talk about a country club attitude. I don't see any way either of those moves work out with the current situation this team is in. These are the kind of C level moves I was talking about earlier. Saunders just isn't ready and frankly shouldn't be coaching a team with a couple players older than he is regardless if the young guys like him. We can't divide the team into young guys and old guys and hope to do well this year. That's setting someone up for failure. Nobody else comes without a multi-year commitment and that's gonna be a bad set back for this team.

Oh and Mark Jackson is a bigger disaster than Thibs when it comes to interaction with front offices.

There's a reason good organizations like GS and Houston moved on from Jackson and McHale and they both significantly improved after those guys left the building.

How long can JVG be out of the game for him to finally not be a coaching consideration? He's the NBA's Gruden at this point.

None of these are good options. They are just different types of disasters waiting to happen than Thibs.

This is a persuasive post, Kahns. But again, for me. Saunders would be an interim appointment allowing the organization more time to find a permanent replacement for Thibs as head coach. We just don't have time to go through the process of getting the right permanent replacement for Thibs before the season starts and I think we need to move on from Thibs now. I'd view McHale as an interim as well, but with more potential to remain longer term. I don't know what to do about the front office. I'm not confident enough in Layden, but we need time to find a replacement for Thibs as PBO too.

lipoli390 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Boy...Ryan Saunders and Kevin McHale. Yikes. Talk about a country club attitude. I don't see any way either of those moves work out with the current situation this team is in. These are the kind of C level moves I was talking about earlier. Saunders just isn't ready and frankly shouldn't be coaching a team with a couple players older than he is regardless if the young guys like him. We can't divide the team into young guys and old guys and hope to do well this year. That's setting someone up for failure. Nobody else comes without a multi-year commitment and that's gonna be a bad set back for this team.

Oh and Mark Jackson is a bigger disaster than Thibs when it comes to interaction with front offices.

There's a reason good organizations like GS and Houston moved on from Jackson and McHale and they both significantly improved after those guys left the building.

How long can JVG be out of the game for him to finally not be a coaching consideration? He's the NBA's Gruden at this point.

None of these are good options. They are just different types of disasters waiting to happen than Thibs.

This is a persuasive post, Kahns. But again, for me. Saunders would be an interim appointment allowing the organization more time to find a permanent replacement for Thibs as head coach. We just don't have time to go through the process of getting the right permanent replacement for Thibs before the season starts and I think we need to move on from Thibs now. I'd view McHale as an interim as well, but with more potential to remain longer term. I don't know what to do about the front office. I'm not confident enough in Layden, but we need time to find a replacement for Thibs as PBO too.

It feels like the people that are ready to move on from Thibs are so thrilled to do so they almost don't care how. I say do this next hire right take the time to do it. First hire your top flight GM and go from there. Take the time you need to do it. If you want a lame duck coach Thibs is one option since we are already paying him or someone else beyond Ryan Saunders. This is a tough situation for Thibs and Layden (regardless of how you feel about these guys) Glen and the team. We don't have some of the information that we need to know if there is a chance that Thibs might have a chance to coach whoever ends up on the roster. I don't think Thibs is the likely to be the right guy to coach this group but I haven't really seen anyone that gets me too excited yet. I'd love for it to be Ryan but I still think it would be a bad situation for him.

lipoli390 wrote:Here's some information some may find interesting. A close friend of mine and his wife lived in China several years before moving back to Mpls last year. My friend's wife is in the fitness business. About a month ago, my friend and his wife got a call from someone they got to know really well in Shanghai. He told them he was moving to Mpls and asked them if they'd help him find a place to live here. He said he was moving here because Jimmy Butler hired him as his personal trainer. I was pretty excited about it because I was going to get to meet him and might have gotten some insights and info over the course of the season.

Of course, my dream of having a connection to Jimmy has died this week with Jimmy's trade demand. I was just thinking about this tonight and it occurred to me that Jimmy's decision to demand a trade must have been a pretty recent one. Again, this guy called my friend and his wife almost 5 weeks ago, fully expecting to move to Minneapolis. Not sure what to make of it. But it would seem that something simmering over time started to suddenly boil over pretty recently. I'm thinking there's a really strange, possibly ugly story somewhere in all of this. I suspect it will come out at some point and we'll just have to add it to the list of mistakes, mishaps and misfortunes that have plagued this franchise for over two decades -- Marbury demanding a trade because he was jealous of KG's contract, Billups leaving because Flip wanted to start the often injured Terrell Brandon, KG hating Wally Z, Malik Sealey getting killed by a drunk driver, the Joe Smith deal that cost this franchise multiple first round picks ... on and on.

Interesting info Lip thanks for sharing. The most interesting part is helping to develop a timeline of when Butler may have gotten serious about this idea of a trade. It would be interesting to hear if this person heard back from Butler about not coming to MPLS at some point...if ever.

If you haven't yet you should listen to Jon K's latest podcast. Some interesting stuff in there.