Minnesota Sports Forum

I'm a little disappointed to see posts here criticizing Flip for how he's dealt with the situation. The guy is dealing with cancer. This is the time to wish him a healthy recovery and rally behind the team.

We don't really know anything about what his doctors have told him or what he may have done to make sure the franchise is in good hands if the worst case scenario should come to pass.

If and when Flip recovers and we've learned more about what happened behind the scenes, then have at it. But in my opinion, now is not the time and this is not the way to do it.

Here's wishing all the best for Flip and his family.

I see and hear the expression "country club" used often here and elsewhere, and I find myself not knowing exactly what it means. I guess I thought it was being used to describe the hiring of an employee who has been here before and will behave in a manner consistent with the way things have always been done...a rather soft, permissive country club environment.

But now I'm confused, because soft and permissive doesn't describe Sam Mitchell in any way. While he appears to be friendly and mutually respectful with Flip Saunders, their personalities are markedly different. Go back and read about Mitchell's tumultuous times in Toronto with some difficult malcontented players, and try to imagine Flip Saunders in a firestorm like that. I can't get there. Flip seems to have a burning desire to be liked, Sam seems to have a burning desire to be respected...and they both have been successful in getting what they want. Flip appears to be one of the best-liked personalities in the game...a true players' coach. And by all accounts, Sam Mitchell has always been one of the most highly respected personalities in the game, even going back to his playing days, but not always liked by everyone. I still remember when he stood up to Karl Malone when Malone was trying to steer the players toward a crippling strike. At a players' meeting, Malone and Mitchell were passionately arguing for and against striking, respectively. The physically intimidating Malone was standing by the door, and told the group threateningly that anyone who voted against striking was going to have to walk by him in leaving the room. Mitchell responded with his patented "cool shuffle walk" and slowly walked by Malone without losing eye contact while saying "I'm walking by you...right now". The players voted not to strike in a landside. That's Mitchell...cool, strong, fearless and respected.

Mitchell is saying all the right things during these difficult times...that he has always used Flip's system, and that he is going to continue to run the team like Flip would. These kinds of statements are necessary to maintain stability during a coaching transition forced by an illness. It's true that Sam's offensive sets look a lot like Flip's, except for one very big difference...Sam's sets much more often result in threes while Flip's offense more often results in long twos. I also believe Sam will try to create a much tougher culture than the Wolves have had recently. A couple examples I have mentioned before: I don't believe Sam would have been as tolerant as Flip was when Adreian Payne showed him up by rolling his eyes at a suggestion Flip had given him, and I don't believe Sam would have allowed Thad Young to take a 14-day bereavement break in the middle of the season when his mom died. I'm not suggesting Sam would have been a jerk about this, but I think he would have expressed his sincere condolences and strongly suggested Thad get back to work after missing a couple games.

Some prefer a players' coach, some prefer a tougher approach. I lean toward the latter, and find the gruffer, tougher coaches are usually more successful. Give me Zimmer over Frazier, or give me successful, but often gruff, coaches like Pop or Belichick. Sam Mitchell is probably not the best coach for the Wolves right now, but neither was Flip, and unfortunately the timing of Flip's adverse reaction to his treatment makes Sam the best possible option right now so close to training camp. If Sam is "country club", give me "country club".

LST Sam certainly fits the country club mentality because he is a Timberwolf but yeah Sam is his own guy but he is also a Flip guy so he is a country club guy especially in light that it's been reported how much Glen likes him.

I listened to the press conference and it was a sad one. You could tell reporters sorta didn't know what to ask especially in light of Flip's family asking for privacy on his health. I liked was Sam said about what he learned from his time with the Raps that he tried to do everyone as he was trying to prove himself as a young coach. He said he plans to lean on the coaching staff more and that some of them probably joe more about some things than he does. He said he does tough love but he wants to make sure that guys know there is love behind it. He said the most important thing though is being fair.

LST on what method is preferable for coaching success it comes down to personality of what you like but for success IMO the approach is important but it isn't what makes success it's a piece of how good the coach is at all the other things that it takes to be good preparation seeing what needs to be done communicating, developing, leading, enabling assistants to be successful, hiring the right guys etc etc. Tony Dungy is an example of a very good coach that was a nice guy. Did he woin because he was nice? No it was because he was a good football coach who was able to implement his philosophy very successfully. Fraizer was a nice guy too he simy wasn't as good at a number of things that it takes to be good at your job. It wasn't just his approach that was a problem.

Phil Jackson has all those championships and has a very unique way of doing things and deserves a ton of credit for winning all those championships I won't take anything away from him but what players did he develop? What team did he take from being even mediocre to championship level? I guess as a GM he is trying to do that with the Knicks and it's not a hands off approach so we shall see if he has that ability to a certain extent.

My longwinded point is that I feel like Flip's approach probably isn't the thing that holds him back there are probably a few other smaller things that keep him from being a great coach instead of a good one and he did actually have opportunities to win titles and let's be real he was a healthy PG away with the wolves from having a really good shot as Wolves coach. Phil Jackson as great of a championship coach as he was shows that what Jeff Van Gundy has said about the right coach for the right time has some merit. I think Flip has listened to that philosophy and hasn't found the right guy for the right time or felt for another year he was the right guy.

LST it's nice to see someone think that Mitchell can be the right guy at this point. I am not excited about Mitchell but I do like him also. At this point he is the guy and as someone else said why wouldn't he be the guy for the rest of the year if Flip is gonna be out months? The Wolves are saying what they are saying because they don't know what will happen which makes sense. I don't think the idea that Flip is coming back is going to keep this coaching staff from doing their job under Sam as the iterm HC. So I am hoping for good things Sam has a reasonable resume as a HC and has a relationship with most of these players so I'm switching into a homer mode when it comes to the season and see what good can come out of this. I do have an eye towards a possible coaching search at the end of the season but at this point there is a lot to play out before then like at least a couple months of a season.

SameOldDrew wrote:I'm a little disappointed to see posts here criticizing Flip for how he's dealt with the situation. The guy is dealing with cancer. This is the time to wish him a healthy recovery and rally behind the team.

We don't really know anything about what his doctors have told him or what he may have done to make sure the franchise is in good hands if the worst case scenario should come to pass.

If and when Flip recovers and we've learned more about what happened behind the scenes, then have at it. But in my opinion, now is not the time and this is not the way to do it.

Here's wishing all the best for Flip and his family.

The guy found out he would be dealing with cancer back in May. Our responses are pretty much that he should have dropped the coaching gig back then so he could fight his cancer. Now the team will have this looming over it all year when and if Flip is gonna come back to coach the team. Name Sam the coach for the year, win the fight with cancer and come back next year. We all wish him well, but he created a huge distraction this year by not just stepping down for the year which he should have done because he's dealing with cancer. It's fair game to criticize him in that respect because he put the team in a tough spot by keeping the door open for his return this year especially as it gets seemingly closer to his return as there's gonna be a lot of focus on that.

I'm probably going to get ripped for this, but it either comes off as egotistical or belittling cancer treatment to think he could coach and fight cancer at the same time which was his mindset for at least 4 months until he finally turned over the reigns temporarily.

Everyone wants Flip to recover well and I think everyone has a lot of positive things to say about what Flip has done overall taking over this franchise. He also is getting paid a ton of money and signed up for this as the guy of this franchise. He is gonna have to deal with some negative stuff that's said it comes with the job. I think he will be fine dealing with that when the time comes. I bet Glen had his devices blocked so he couldn't read this board while he recovers. Lol

I starting thinking more about Mitchell and PGs in the PG shooting thread. Does anyone have any thoughts there?

Well here is what I noticed looking at team stats...Mitchell had a wide variety of PGs in Toronto and all of them seemed to have at the very least solid success. TJ Ford and Mike James had career years under Mitchell. He also had Calderon and Alston too. Pretty much I f you can think of a type of PG Sam had it. That could be good for Rubio because I think all of us agree he needs to be allowed to play and that seemed like it wasn't happening at times under Adelman.

Also a fun connection I hadn't thought about till recently is that Triano was an assistant under Mitchell before he was given the team when Sam was fired. Maybe they still have a relationship and communicate about Wiggins and Bennett?

Does Vinsanity still play for MEM? If he does, their next visit to Target Center should be fun. Joerger and half of Staples-Motley can break up the fight between Mitchell and Carter.