Flip Saunders

Philip "Flip" Saunders ( born February 23, 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American basketball coach.

Career

Saunders began his career as a coach at Golden Valley Lutheran College, where he acquired a 92-13 record. In 1981 he became assistant to coach at his alma mater Minnesota. After five seasons, he joined as an assistant coach at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He worked there for two seasons.

In 1988 the CBA, in which he in his first season, the Rapid City Thrillers trained and then the La Crosse Catbirds took over. In five years at the Catbirds Saunders twice won the CBA Championship ( 1990, 1992 ) before he led the team in the Sioux Falls Skyforce for a year. With 253 victories, he is in these statistics is the second most successful coach in league history.

It was in 1995 the change in the NBA with the Minnesota Timberwolves. There Saunders remained until 2005, making him the coach with by far the longest tenure of the franchise. He arrived with her eight times the play-offs (1997-2004), but different seven seasons in succession from the first round. Only in 2004 could Saunders break through this series and led the Timberwolves to the Western Conference final series, which is the greatest success of the franchise. As the following season was less successful, and the team had after 51 games already lost more games than during the previous 82 games of the regular season, he was released.

At the start of the following season Saunders took over the Detroit Pistons, which he led to the finals of the Eastern Conference. In 2007 and 2008 he was able to repeat this with the Pistons. After the complainant had missed each of the finals, he was released on 3 June 2008 by the Pistons.

From 2009 to February 2012, he was head coach of the Washington Wizards.

May 2013 Saunders returned back to the Minnesota Timberwolves. There he took over the management position for the operational basketball business. He has also received shares in the franchise.

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