The heat’s on Flip Saunders to win 

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 4/20/2006

 

The NBA playoffs begin this week, and for the second year in a row the Minnesota Timberwolves are on the outside looking in. It has become a sorry state of affairs when you take a long hard look at the dogs with no bite.

 

Last year, Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale fired the best coach in franchise history, Flip Saunders, after the team struggled on the heels of reaching the NBA Western Finals three years ago.

 

After six straight winning seasons and eight straight playoff appearances, the Timberwolves have been in steady decline the last two years. Sunday, the Timberwolves were beaten soundly by the defending NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs 103-90; it was the team’s 48th loss of the year with one game to go. During the last off season, the Timberwolves hired first-year Head Coach Dwane Casey to replace the popular Saunders, a terrific Xs and Os man.

 

Did the Timberwolves hire the right man? Remember, McHale wanted to hire Spurs Assistant Coach P.J Carlesimo, famous for being choked by Latrell Sprewell years ago. Team owner Glen Taylor decided on Casey.

 

Were the Timberwolves a potential playoff team before trading former all-star Wally Szczerbiak during the season? Former Gopher great and NBA star Trent Tucker said, “I thought so. I thought this team could compete for the Northwest Division Championship.

 

“I thought the Timberwolves had enough coming into this season, with Dwane Casey being the new coach, that they would have enough to make a playoff run,” said Tucker. “I felt like they were still one player short to make a significant run in the Western Conference, but I was thinking somewhere during the season Kevin McHale would be able to find one player to add here or there to make this a better basketball team.”

 

 The last time the Timberwolves lost 48 games or more in one season was 1995-96, when then-coach Bill Blair was fired during the season and replaced by Saunders. The Timberwolves finished 26-56. It’s been that kind of year for the Timberwolves, who lost 14 straight on the road at one point during the year and finished with a horrendous 9-32 record away from Target Center.

 

Has Kevin Garnett played his last game for the Timberwolves? It sure looks that way! Can you say Randy Moss? Daunte Culpepper?

 

Says Garnett, “I’ll be in Minnesota as long as they want me here. I don’t think I can take another one of these rebuilding stages. I ‘ve always said that I think I’m worth not only being listened to, but I think I’m definitely in a position where I should have a team and a chance to win a ring. So at the end of the day, they [the Timberwolves] should at least give me that.”

 

Garnett has to be concerned with his legacy, and right now his legacy is that he can’t win the big one. When at $18 million a year you’re the highest paid player in basketball, the only player in league history to sign two $100-million-dollar contracts, with not even a trip to the NBA finals in 10 years much less a championship ring — and you’re 30 years old — enough is enough. Garnett is going to be in a Lakers’ uniform next year.

 

Saunders, his former coach, has won 64 games with Detroit, the best in the NBA this season, and that’s great. But the Pistons reached the finals the last two years, winning the title two years ago before losing last year to the Spurs in seven games.

 

Saunders has to win the championship in Detroit, that’s the bottom line. Coaching the only team in NBA history with four all-stars makes winning the title a requirement. However, the teams that have led the NBA in wins the last three years have failed to win the title — Dallas, Indiana and Phoenix. Will Detroit join that group?

 

The heat’s on Saunders.