Posts tagged ‘coaching’

STOP:

First go read part one of my piece on Nolan Ricahrdson, then read below …

Richardson understands he signed up for full-on rebuilding mode, in the WNBA, and seems dedicated to getting Tulsa off to a good start. But his personal transition to coaching the women’s game has also been a challenge.

“In the female game, it’s more patterned. A goes to B, B goes to C, you know, pick and pop and those kind of things,” Richardson told me. “In the male game, it’s more you can get after people like we did at the end there where we got into our scramble defense. We normally do a lot of that with the men’s game, in the women’s game you can’t play that way.”

Most of Richardson’s critics will say he’s failing because his active defensive scheming, aka the “40 Minutes of Hell,” just won’t work with females. Not so says the coach.

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Once, when asked about what his team would look like in the coming season, whether it would be more offensively minded, and how it would keep up the intensity on the defensive end, Flip Saunders said:

Well, defensively, the team always takes the personality of their players. The players we have here … are very defensive oriented. The strength of this team from a defensive aspect – how hard they play and how aggressively they play won’t change. What will change is the changing defenses we’ll use, being able to change the tempo of the game will full-court pressure, half-court traps and defenses. Offensively, like our defense, we will always stay aggressive. I always want my teams to attack, and so we will look to push the ball more and score more out of our fast break.

And on whether he would try to evolve a player into a superstar or continue with the teamwork mentality:

In Minnesota, even though we had a great player in Garnett, the team was built on team play. I look for this team to continue that. This team will move the basketball, become a high-assist, low-turnover team playing a very aggressive style.

This was in the summer of 2005, before Saunders’ Detroit Pistons finished with the best record in the NBA at 64-18, and before they lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.

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While Ted Leonsis was getting all the attention today, and deservedly so, there’s also a team being built. Flip Saunders usually isn’t made available to the media before or after pre-draft workouts, so today’s press conference was a good chance to catch up with Saunders and get his thoughts on the process leading up to June 24th.

I asked Flip, with John Wall reportedly set to workout for the Wizards on June 17th, if they’ve scheduled Evan Turner or any other top prospect. So far, the Wizards have hosted more on-the-cusp players who might be available at 30 and 35 or go undrafted.

Saunders deferred to Milt Newton, vice president of player personnel, but later indicated that the Wizards have talked to Turner’s people. The coach also said the Wizards would probably have seven more days of pre-draft workouts with five or six guys each day.

On the process of trying to get players to come workout, Saunders said:

“Some of it’s not of our choosing. Players don’t have to come in if they don’t want to. Some players, either through word of mouth or their agent, don’t think they’re going to have an opportunity. And I’m not talking about the No. 1 pick, we’ve had guys who we’d like to look at, at maybe No. 30, that we can’t get in because they don’t think they’re going to be there.

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There were several interesting quotes from the Wizards about themselves in Michael Lee’s report from Minneapolis on Wizards Insider. I’m unsure if it’s more frustrating that they actually realize what they’re doing wrong. Let’s first read a quote from Flip Saunders:

“Guys have to be disciplined. They have to be willing to turn down a shot at time. Tonight, we had no shot discipline. Tonight, it was, ‘I haven’t taken a shot, so I’m going to shoot it.’ when you do that, you shoot 38 percent from the field.”

A reoccurring theme … the players not trusting, or deviating from, Saunders’ offense. Lets see what Antawn Jamison had to say:

“We played selfish basketball at times. On the road, you can’t do that. I don’t care who you’re playing against.”

I’d also like to add that you can’t do that at home either, but yes, another reoccurring theme. Saunders has put such selfishness more nicely before, calling it ‘hero basketball’.

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Not long after the ‘Design an Inbounds Play For the Wizards’ contest hit the interwebs, there were reports of Flip Saunders doing a Capitol Hill two-step, back-pedaling away like a politician.

“They talked, and we haven’t totally committed on that. It wasn’t an end of the game thing when we talked about it. It was a – if we do it – a how about a first-timeout play of the game. … It was designed to be an interactive thing with the fans, a first quarter you run a play and see what they have. … We’re still playing with the idea of where it really goes.”

[Flip Saunders via Wizards Outlet]

It only took a couple more days for ESPN’s Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy to get to it. During Friday’s Wizards-Warriors broadcast, Jackson started by bringing up the contest and calling it a “joke.” Van Gundy followed with:

“My problem with it is this. People would say, ‘What’s the problem, it’s only one possession’, but they’ve lost six straight one possession games. Every possession matters in the NBA. And I would not be willing, as a team, to give away any possessions.”

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{flickr/Keith Allison}

No, this isn’t a joke … although, with the season going the way it is, you’d think it might be.

But really, what’s the harm in Flip Saunders & Co. using one play selected from a pool of civilian submissions. At this point, it can’t hurt. Right?

The details of the contest, via ESPN, are below … and more can be found by following the link at the bottom. (However, this will take you to an ESPN Insider page, so you might need an account).

The contest says it will be an inbounds play, but doesn’t really indicate if the play will be an ‘Out-Under’ (an inbounds play from the baseline under the basket) or a ‘Side-Out’ (an inbounds play from the sideline), so I guess you’ll have to use whichever one floats your boat.

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Count on seeing McGee in warmups more than in uniform - flickr/Keith Allison

Amidst Flip Saunders’ talk of an 8-man rotation (well, according to his quote below, really an 8 + 2 rotation), I wanted to attempt to predict the 2009-10 minutes distribution … all the way in August.

My philosophy’s always been you play eight players, nine and ten play when you have some foul trouble which you’re always gonna usually have in a game. -Flip

The idea reflected in my numbers below is that eight players will receive consistent minutes and the ‘plus 2′ can be any combination of the remaining players, given which one, contingent on a number of factors that will be judged by Saunders’ coaching experience, best fits the circumstance.

(Note: I first came up with my numbers on some gut feeling, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink! type of thinking. I then read a great post, ‘How Deep Was My Bench?’ by bwoodsxyx on Bullets Forever. The post relays some great research and numbers that support the ’8 + 2′ idea when it comes to Saunders’ rotation.) Read more »

When I hear about Flip Saunders saying he’s a teacher before a coach, about how he and his assistants (namely Sam Cassell) have been working with the young guys, that he, being an ‘offensive mind’, has developed a mini-playbook for the summer league team and that he’ll be observing from a close distance on-site in Vegas, I think, “Boy, isn’t that refreshing?”

It’s comforting that a new, veteran coach, known to keep a tight bench and favor elders in his rotation, has arrived in D.C. with the mind-set of bringing along the young fellas. Not only does Flip believe that children are our future, but he practices it, knowing the jobs of both him, and the man who hired him, Ernie Grunfeld, depend on how they develop the team from top to bottom.

Mike Prada recently expressed a similar sentiment regarding Saunders in a pre-summer league post on Bullets Forever.

But in patting Flip on the back for his involvement with the youth, no one should be pointing ‘shame on your’ fingers towards former coach Eddie Jordan. Yes, Jordan used different tactics with his young players. And from the outside perspective/opinion of many (not including myself), those tactics were less than ideal.

But the fact is, we’ll never really know the true difference between Jordan’s player development and that of Saunders. An initial thought would be that Jordan was more no-nonsense, treated boys like men, and was less tolerant of mental breakdowns in concentration. Seemingly in contrast, Saunders has come in with encouragement and positive thinking.

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Well, the Flip Saunders era “officially” begun today (yesterday, meant to get this posted then, but blogger was acting funny) with a short and sweet press conference. Yep, seems like the Wizards franchise is ‘Determined to Deliver’ four c-words to fans next year. Keep reading for quotes and commentary from the presser.

images via www.washingtonwizards.com

Ernie Grunfeld Quotes:

“Start of a new beginning.”

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