Minnesota Sports Forum

Let's do a thread discussing just Sam as a coach. This Q&A with Zgota is a nice way to start it off. Jerry did a nice job IMO.

http://m.startribune.com/sports/wolves/329661781.html

I'm in a show me mode. As far as I'm concerned he sucks until he proves otherwise.

Key takeaways:

- Mitchell is coaching this team for development, not winning as many games as possible. Mmmm, I figured he'd say something a little more balanced, but he was pretty decisive about what the priority is.

- Jerry Zgoda is a moron. Here was one of his questions: "Do you hate 3-pointers too?". When Mitchell asked what he meant by that Jerry went on to say that there was a portion of the fanbase that felt Flip hates 3's. I don't know of anyone that says Flip hates 3's. It's more of an issue of not understanding their value compared to long 2's and the inconsistency of giving guys a green light to shoot open 20-footers but not open 23 footers. Zgoda is a troll. Any intelligent fan could have probed on that issue in a much more insightful way.

- I did not get the feeling that Rubio is ready to go yet. Mitchell didn't give a solid indication that he is fully recovered. I gotta say - this might be the worst ankle sprain in the history of mankind. WTF!?

- He was very sure that Pek would not be ready to go by preseason. Even when Pek was healthy, he was a slow starter. I just don't see him being very effective this year. But I guess 10-15 minutes of a gimpy Pek is better than nothing.

- I'm a little concerned at the lack of continuity this team is experiencing. I had thought that Mitchell's primary job would be to execute Flip's plan. But he made it pretty clear that he's his own man and will coach differently and do different things. It doesn't even sound like he's talked to Flip. Taylor must have put a firewall in place between Flip and the rest of the organization.

- Not a single question on defense. Zgoda is a moron.

Fix the stupid shit Flip still believes has a place in today's game so Flip/Glenn can see first hand how much better this team can be without handcuffs. The best thing that can happen is success doing something different than Flip so Glenn keeps Flip in the front office.

Looks like Brown is the 15th man. I have yet to see Wolves brass acknowledge the existence of Rudez.

Q good point about not asking about defense that was a bad ommision. I think Herry was probably trying to be funny when asking about 3's. Sam generally didn't seem amused.

My biggest takeaways:

I was a little surprised how strongly Sam talked about development. It really sounds like young guys are going to get a shot to play. He said something's about Prince playing in an emergency. Wow if this is about development and he is looking to play young guys that makes me think Brown has the inside track on the last roster spot when it comes to him.

I am glad Sam is taking ownership of the job. I don't want him to just keep the seat warm for Flip. Sam said he isn't Flip, you gotta do a job your way. A lot of what Mitchell said and has said makes me think he will not be that significantly different when it comes to philosophy from Flip.

Overall Sam said a lot of the right stuff. "I learned from..." "I've thought about the way I would do things differently..." We will see I am interested to see how it goes.

If I have my choice of Flip or Sam, I'll take Sam. Would have liked to have gone a different way, but I guess we have to choose our battles.

With the lack of info on Flip, I am guessing things are much worse than originally thought.

Not happy about Milt running things. He comes out and says moving Bennett was about balancing the roster, and now Sam is implying that Brown will be a 4th PG. How is that balancing a roster. If I remember correctly, PF was one of our weak positions last season. Guys can't be playing the 4 when we likely only have two healthy 5's.

I really hope Bjelica pans out, because we really have no other realistic option for a starting 4 moving forward.

I like Sam's moxie. I like that he took the opportunity to learn and reflect on his approach to coaching since Toromto fired him 7 years ago. While I share Q's concern about continuity, I like that Sam intends to be his own man as head coach, following his own judgment and philosophy. And I like that he intends to put development of the young core ahead of playing for as many wins as possible.

I'd still take Flip over Sam as head coach this upcoming season. And I'd still would have preferred a Malone or someone similar over Mitchell or Flip. But I'm ok with Sam and it will be interesting to see what impact he has on this team and the development of our young talent. I also like the addition of the new assistant coach from Atlanta. I think he'll really help Sam.

I hear you guys on Smitch > Flip as coach. By lack of continuity, what I'm thinking about is going from Adelman to Flip to Smitch to ???? in the course of what could be only a couple of years. I still go back to Flip's diagnosis back in the spring/early summer and the decision to not right then and there hang up the clipboard and find a head coach. Now perhaps Smitch does well enough to ultimately earn the "full-time" tag, but I'm skeptical.

Wow, Sam is feisty in that interview! I think some of it is just him and Jerry having a little fun, but he also may have been annoyed at times with some of the questions.

I like the straightforwardness of Sam's answers. But also keep in mind that Sam is a smart guy, and he is going to do what's best for him...and what's best for him is the Wolves winning now rather than working on development. Sam knows he is auditioning for the head coach job that he really wants, either here or somewhere else, and it's wins that will get him there, not the long-term improvement of his young core.

As I re-read the interview, I see Sam managing expectations. Saying definitively that he is coaching for development rather than winning now immediately lowers expectations, and gives him a better chance of exceeding expectations, I also found his Towns comments interesting. He talked about the guy only having KG-like minutes in only 32 college games, and how we shouldn't put too much pressure on him. This suggested to me that he prefers to see Towns coming off the bench, rather than starting from Day 1.

It's interesting to me that it's clear there has been no communication between Flip and Sam. That gives me a lot of concern for the current status of Flip's health, but I also think that it is good for Sam...much easier for him to make his decisions without feeling he is being second guessed.

Thanks for posting this, monster...so much of this interview didn't make it into the newspaper version, such as all the 3-point talk and the comments about Jones. It's clear to me that Sam has built a special relationship with Tyus Jones already, and is going to give him every chance to succeed. Yesterday, I also read some comments from Tyus about his relationship with Sam. It's apparent that they became very close this summer travelling together on the Wolves' Caravan...almost like a father/son relationship.

How stupid was Zgoda's question about whether coaching Calderon was going to help Sam in coaching Rubio? Yeah, because all guys from Spain are exactly the same. Good god, Jerry!