Wizards Coach Flip Saunders fired

[QUOTE=cranincu]Flip Saunders gave up on this team the moment preseason rolled out

Remember when he benched all his starters in the preseason game and said flat out to the press "I was tired of watching that shit"

Edit:
[url]http://dc.sbnation.com/washington-wizards/2011/12/17/2642473/flip-saunders-wizards-vs-76ers-nba-preseason[/url]
pretty much straight up says theyre uncoachable too[/QUOTE]

Can't argue with that statement though.

Also, holy shit, I've never had a thread of mine stickied before.

:djparty
:dancin :hammertime: :party:




:milton

[QUOTE=JMT]No coach wins without players. For his first couple seasons, Gugliotta was the 'go to' guy on those T'Wolves teams. Then KG and Starbury. Then KG and Brandon. KG was a star, but there was nothing about those teams that made them automatic winners. Poor depth and guys that, aside from KG, never delivered big at any other stop in their careers.

The stacked Pistons team won 10 more games with him than they did the year before with Larry Brown.[/QUOTE]

Great coaches get the most out of players, have good offensive and defensive schemes (or at least get assistants who do), can manage their egos, team delivers better out of time-outs, etc.

Flip does none of those things well. I was watching him for over a decade, he is bellow average coach. Even Mike Brown is better, who can only do one thing well - defense, nothing else.

What concerns Pistons, Larry won championship in one of the greatest overachievements in NBA history in '04, in '05 he was in the Finals again. Flip took over after that, and outside of winning more games in the regular season, can you say anything good about those Pistons teams? No championships, no Finals. Mike Brown was also winning a lot of Regular season games (more like Lebron was), it didnt mean squat in the Playoffs.

some trades could help too

I am surprised that it took this long. I love Flip, but he was in way over his head with this team. Then to let Randy Wittman take over....:roll: It is going to get worse for the Wizards.

The Wizards aren't trying to win. They are in rebuild mode. Ted Leonsis, the owner, believe in building through the draft. He's fine with losses piling up.

Flip Saunders was fired because he couldn't get a good effort out of his guys and his players were not improving. Honestly, Saunders should have been let go a long time ago. He was the wrong coach for Leonsis' rebuild phase.

[QUOTE=Harison]Great coaches get the most out of players, have good offensive and defensive schemes (or at least get assistants who do), can manage their egos, team delivers better out of time-outs, etc.

Flip does none of those things well. I was watching him for over a decade, he is bellow average coach. Even Mike Brown is better, who can only do one thing well - defense, nothing else.

What concerns Pistons, Larry won championship in one of the greatest overachievements in NBA history in '04, in '05 he was in the Finals again. Flip took over after that, and outside of winning more games in the regular season, can you say anything good about those Pistons teams? No championships, no Finals. Mike Brown was also winning a lot of Regular season games (more like Lebron was), it didnt mean squat in the Playoffs.[/QUOTE]


Let's begin by clarifying that nobody said Saunders was a "great" coach. That's a term that's thrown around and overused in sports in general.

Saunders throughout his career has been recognized as a very good defensive coach. That Detroit team ran into Miami and a career-defining post season from Wade in the ECF. That he didn't match the level of success Larry Brown had with those players? Well, add him to a long list. Brown legitimately is a "great" coach.

Saunders is a solid NBA coach who took over a dysfunctional team and franchise in Washington, wasn't able to get a professional level of effort out of a horrible group of players, and probably deserved to be fired. But to call someone who has had 10 winning seasons out of 15 in the NBA a "below average coach" is ridiculous imo.