Reaction to the death of Minnesota Timberwolves head coach and team president Flip Saunders rippled through a heartbroken NBA on Sunday.
Grief in the face of a too-early departure from this earth formed the core of the league’s response to the shattering news. Sadness about the loss of a man in the middle of his professional prime, on the verge of restoring the same franchise for a second time, was real and profound. It cut through social media, and it cut across all generations, from the young players Saunders was just getting to know to longtime basketball writers, coaches and executives.
Grief-filled reactions on social media to passing of Flip Saunders https://t.co/stiwjmqZz1
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) October 25, 2015
The sense of grief and loss will not go away anytime soon — in the state of Minnesota or anywhere else. To a certain extent, this reality would exist for other franchises in other situations with other coaches. When any coach of a major sports team dies at 60, it’s a thunderbolt. When that same coach is the mentor of a Hall of Fame player with a significant impact on the culture and development of the sport (Kevin Garnett), it’s even more of a punch to the gut.
Yet, while Flip Saunders’ identities as the leader of a franchise and the mentor of KG will long remain the most substantial dimensions of his illustrious career, something beyond basketball flowed through the reaction to his passing. There was a common thread in so many of the reflections and remembrances of this man, whose contributions to the sport in the state of Minnesota cannot be measured.
That common thread is not something one typically associates with the NBA.
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Let’s acknowledge, first and foremost, that one treads on very thin ice — and gets into trouble very quickly — when talking about the intelligence and cultural identities of NBA players. Basketball requires an immense, acute, and lightning-quick intelligence. Much of the game is played by feel and flow, but a rich understanding of the sport is necessary for anyone who seeks to master it at the NBA level. This is not a league of dumb jocks with culturally nihilistic outlooks, and it’s easy for the casual observer to think or feel that from a distance.
Yet, behind many ugly stereotypes (maybe not all, but certainly some) exists at least a tiny grain of understanding as to why that stereotype grew into being. In the NBA, the (highly flawed) idea that players are more egotistical and selfish (and less intelligent) than in other sports comes from a genuine-enough source: No sport isolates the ego and puts it on a pedestal more than basketball does. This isn’t even an NBA-specific point; it’s a basketball point.
Hockey puts five men plus a goalie on one team during live action. Yet, in hockey, the expanse of the ice and (more importantly) the constant shuffling of players in and out of the playing area creates a certain degree of — if not anonymity — reduced proximity to each player. You can fit into the background in hockey. This is also true in football, with 11 men on a team at one time. Baseball magnifies each individual more than hockey and football, but the great leveler on that score is that if the ball is never hit to you or you’re always coming up to bat with no men on base (especially with two outs), you’re not going to be remembered on a given gameday. Oceans of baseball games come and go without Player X encountering a memorable or tense moment.
In basketball, more than any of the other major North American team sports, there is no escape from the spotlight when the ball is tipped and the outcome of the game is in doubt. On offense and especially on defense, basketball players must always be on. The playing surface is too contained; the immediacy of a transition from defense to offense too overwhelming, to truly take a break for anything more than, perhaps, 15 seconds at the offensive end after you’ve just made a saving blocked shot on defense.
Basketball, when played before crowds, strips players naked in a way other sports simply don’t do. Basketball players aren’t more egotistical than others, but their egos are more VISIBLE than others, and this is what leads to all the stereotypes you’ve surely heard about NBA players and coaches. When Phil Jackson or Pat Riley succeeded, they will tell you that they didn’t succeed because they knew so much about basketball; they were able to handle their players and get them to buy what they were selling. Gregg Popovich and any other successful present-day coach can’t continue to win at a high level without gaining the trust of his team. The NBA isn’t necessarily a league soaked in egotistical impulses and inclinations so much as it’s a league in which the ego of the athlete is so constantly exposed to the fan, without any real filter.
This is a business for the Alpha Male. It’s bloodsport with very little room for kindness and decency and gentleness, poured out evenly to everyone. It’s a league in which Steve Kerr receiving feedback from his under-30-year-old video coordinator before Game 4 of the NBA Finals — and ACTING ON IT — is an exceptional moment rather than the norm.
Yet, the NBA is also a league in which Flip Saunders never lost sense of who he was, or what truly mattered, or how he was supposed to carry himself in all moments — the wins, the losses, the soaring triumphs, the wrenching setbacks, the whole lot.
Indeed, if Flip Saunders taught us something immensely valuable and left us with an everlasting gift, it is this: You can win a lot and be very successful and still be a kind, decent person. You don’t have to be a jerk to win. You don’t have to be a diva or a drama magnet to achieve richly. You don’t have to trample over others or show them up (or both) to succeed.
This tweet was and is representative of the NBA’s collective reaction to Flip Saunders’s death:
Best thing about being beat writer of Flip Saunders' teams was, he couldn't stay mad at you. Always sense the FUN was bigger than grudges.
— Steve Aschburner (@AschNBA) October 25, 2015
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The state of Minnesota is known for one of the great and quintessential “Happy Warriors” in the history of United States politics, Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Senator Paul Wellstone followed this path, and like Saunders (albeit in a plane crash, not due to Hodgkin’s lymphoma), Wellstone didn’t get to live to a great old age.
Saunders was in many ways the NBA’s “Happy Warrior,” a product of his state, but also a product of his own shining virtues, cultivated through hard work and dedication to craft. When you honor your craft — and the profession in which you’re able to apply it on a daily basis — you value the work to the extent that all contributions matter. If the work is what’s valued, any other person who is part of the process of enhancing your work is important. This is true regardless of final victory or final defeat, or the result at the end of a game or a season.
Flip Saunders realized this, and it’s why he treated every single person with complete respect. That’s what basketball lifers and the youngest Minnesota Timberwolves are saying this week. Saunders fused the idea of excellence with the need to treat everyone with the same high standards. That he made four NBA conference finals and catapulted an organization (the Timberwolves) to a place of prominence and success represent rich parts of his legacy.
To read the definitive assessment on his life, go here:
Beautiful details in this @APkrawczynski obituary for Flip Saunders: https://t.co/irJBXzYwGA
— Adi Joseph (@AdiJoseph) October 25, 2015
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In the end, Flip Saunders leaves us with a legacy most centrally defined by the subjugation of the ego in service of the elevation of the craft he applied and taught. In this way, he is a foremost example for all of us, but especially anyone who seeks teaching — or in sports, coaching — as a lifelong vocation.
That’s an enormously valuable gift to leave to the NBA family which mourns his death today.
