Flip Saunders
Flip Saunders
Philip Daniel "Flip" Saunderswas an American basketball player and coach. During his career, he coached the Minnesota Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons, and Washington Wizards...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth23 February 1955
CityCleveland, OH
coaching establish hard individual performing players start thinking trying whether
The thing about young players, whether it's coaching or not, is that young players are always going to start out the same way -- they play hard and they play. That's who they are. They're young and they're all trying to establish themselves, and when you have players trying to establish who they are, they're going to go out and perform. Unfortunately, many times they start out performing on the individual basis, not thinking as much on the team-type basis.
almost believing coaching firing maybe question tendency
Sometimes, I think, when you're fired, you have a tendency to maybe question things that you do. For me, the firing almost entrenched me more in believing that philosophically, from a coaching standpoint, that this was the right way of going about doing it.
coaches exhibition guess improve last maybe people ready regular season trying week
Very much so. It's something as coaches that we're not used to. You don't really go through that very much. I guess I would liken it to maybe the last week of the exhibition season when you're trying to get ready for the regular season. You want to improve and you want to keep sharp, you want to give people opportunities, you want to be competitive and you still want to win.
bit changes coaches few game gave league maybe people players reward rule team understand
I think people will understand that when we go in together, they will understand what it really is all about. A few years ago ... there were rule changes that were made to make the game aesthetically better and to make the game more team oriented, not as individually oriented. I think the reward that the coaches gave our players kind of signified a little bit maybe that's the way our league is going.
chance coaches five four good talking three vote voted whether
I think from talking to a lot of coaches, I'd say there's a pretty good chance of three going and a possibility of four. Just from talking to coaches. But you've had a lot of coaches say they would vote for five. Whether five could make it would be tough. Even if four makes it -- even three -- when you don't have any of them voted in by the fans, that's pretty unbelievable.
coach committed drive far good group players sure
Like I said, I think a coach is as good as the players he has. You do have to drive them. You've got to make sure to put them in the right situations. And we have a group that's very committed as far as what we're doing.
against ben coached conference good guy job playing points seen volume western
I told Ben after, I had been in the Western Conference for a lot of years and I have coached against Dirk many times. I don't think I had seen as good a job of playing a guy one-on-one as that. Dirk made some shots, but he really had to work. We wanted to make him a volume scorer, and 25 points on 23 shots, that's pretty good.
authority coach course deal helps main mutual players respect seven time
It really helps any time you have it. The coach is the authority figure, and you've got to be able to communicate with players. Over the course of seven months, things are going to happen, and you've got to deal with those situations. The main thing is the players know that I respect them. It's because of that mutual respect that we're able to deal with any kind of situation.
ability build coach comments confidence somebody
Those I take as being comments from a young coach who has never been in that situation. I've never been a coach who downgrades what somebody else is doing to build myself up. I have enough confidence in my own ability to where I feel like I can just go out and show what I can do.
approach biggest coach mental poise seem situation
They never seem to be in a situation where as a coach you say, 'Boy, we just don't have it tonight,' ... Their mental approach of 'It's going to be OK,' that's probably the biggest thing, the poise they have.
anytime bad bounce carries coach energetic energy excitement initial takes whether
There's always an energetic bounce - whether good, bad or indifferent - because a new voice, a new energy comes in. Anytime a coach takes over a team, there's always that initial excitement that carries over to the team.
anytime athletes coach greatest
Anytime you can coach the greatest athletes in the world for a day, it's a thrill.
coach days gets guy luxury next night replace sat sit
In the past, you had a guy who got nicked up, you had to make a decision. You put him on the IRE and he sat out days and games, or a coach said, 'Well, we're going to sit him out, but we're not going to replace him.' Right now, you have the luxury of, if a guy gets the flu, you can sit him out that night and if he's better the next night, you can let him play.
coach far game good shooter understand
And I didn't understand how good a perimeter shooter he was and how good a passer he was. He's got some things as a coach you can't teach, as far as his feel for the game passing-wise.