Minnesota Sports Forum

Yes its premature, yes it was a country club hire, but is it possible that the brain trust lucked into a legitimately good coach?

His rotations have been great so far. He's getting a ton out of our bench. And putting Graham in the starting lineup was a smart move for our spacing.

It could be a fluke so far but its hard not to pull for him.

The team just has a different feel, he's doing something right. Time will tell.

He is the anti-Thibs and I love what he's done so far.

They've really only played one good team. Yes, Miami is a good team but we played them at home on the second night of an OT back-to-back, so on that particular night they were not a very good team.

Q12543 wrote:They've really only played one good team. Yes, Miami is a good team but we played them at home on the second night of an OT back-to-back, so on that particular night they were not a very good team.

We were also supposed to be one of those bad teams. But notot only did we win, we won on the road convincingly.

crazy-canuck wrote:

Q12543 wrote:They've really only played one good team. Yes, Miami is a good team but we played them at home on the second night of an OT back-to-back, so on that particular night they were not a very good team.

We were also supposed to be one of those bad teams. But notot only did we win, we won on the road convincingly.

True. I certainly didn't expect us to be 4-1 at this point, so insofar as we've exceeded expectations, so has Ryan. He certainly scores high on the "process and culture" score. I just didn't expect it to translate to many wins. Still early.

KG4Ever wrote:He is the anti-Thibs and I love what he's done so far.

Yes. He's playing 9-10 guys and making good moves.

I don't know how good Ryan would have done on his own, but Rosas has clearly been the guiding influence for this team. While Ryan certainly has his own redeeming qualities, he needed to buy into what Rosas wanted to have any chance of being the hire. And I suspect it was Rosas with the final say in choosing Prigioni and Vanterpool (who has the title of assistant Head Coach). But Ryan has clearly been doing the things that he has been asked to do, and has been allowing his assistant coaches to do their thing as well. And they have been winning more than they have been losing, plus having a good time and being entertaining as well. I guess that is good coaching!

Doug beat me to it, but my response was going to be that it's still very early in determining whether or not Ryan Saunders is a good coach, but I think it is clear as day that David Vanterpool -- and Pablo Prigioni to a lesser degree -- is a tremendous coach.

Vanterpool had a very good track record before winding up here and probably should be a head coach somewhere else. When his name was floating around this summer, I looked into his time with Portland and came away impressed. To sum it up, he was basically the reason their defense took a significant jump and I know he's still close with Damian Lillard to this day. Enjoy this while you can and hope that it rubs off on Saunders because I think it's likely that Vanterpool is only here for one season. There are a handful of teams that will look at him for their head coaching spot and I would be surprised if he isn't hired.

I think that what we do know about Saunders already is that he's a very good communicator and the players are listening to him. What good is a message if the messenger can't deliver it to the intended audience? I think that was largely the issue Tom Thibodeau had here rather than anything X's and O's, and Saunders has definitely been better in that regard -- communication.

We won't know for sure until he actually has to deliver in big games in the playoffs when it's games 5,6 and 7 and the other team knows everything you want to do and you have to find an adjustment that works. You can't ask for much better of a start though so he's on his way. It looks like the players respect him and listen to him which is a big part of what you need to make it in this league as a coach and ego manager.