Flip Saunders hospitalized, takes leave from coaching Timberwolves

MINNEAPOLIS With Flip Saunders in a local hospital fighting cancer, the message at the Timberwolves’ news conference Friday was simple: Keep the team moving forward until he gets back.

Wolves CEO Rob Moore, interim head coach Sam Mitchell and general manager Milt Newton talked about carrying on Saunders’ vision.

“Flip has to have the time to get healthy,” said Mitchell, who will coach the team until Saunders can return.

In his opening comments, Moore said the organization is planning for that process to take months, not weeks. Saunders underwent chemotherapy after being diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma earlier this summer. But he recently experienced complications from his completed treatments that required him to be admitted to the hospital, and he is now getting additional testing and treatment.

“We have a great staff,” Mitchell continued. “So we feel confident we can get the job done. I look at it as: we just want things right when Flip comes back.”

Saunders, officially on leave, will have no contact with the team, per orders of owner Glen Taylor. The team wants Saunders to focus on his health, not basketball.

“Our focus right now is on Flip and his healing process,” the Saunders family said in a statement released by the team. “We are grateful for the prayers, concern and support for Flip and our family during this time. The family would appreciate everyone continuing to respect our privacy going forward as we journey down the road ahead. We are fully committed to Flip’s long-term health and look forward to him returning to his Timberwolves responsibilities at the appropriate time.”

Saunders and his wife, Debbie, have four children, including Ryan, a Wolves assistant coach.

“First and foremost, my immediate concern is for the Saunders family and the health of Flip Saunders,” Taylor said in a statement. “Our priority now is for him to regain his strength so that he can be 100 percent when he returns to his Timberwolves duties.”

Newton and Saunders have worked closely together, and Newton will take on additional day-to-day responsibilities of directing basketball operations. One of Newton’s first duties was to call the players and inform them of the situation.

“They know there is a job to be done,” Newton said. “Their thoughts and prayers are with Flip and his family. But they know training camp is coming up. We expect them to be nothing less than professional.”

The goal is to carry on what Saunders started while assembling a team filled with young talent and a few key veterans.

A former Wolves forward for 10 seasons, Mitchell, 52, returns to the head coaching chair.

“Flip is not only my coach, he’s my friend,” Mitchell said. “The best thing I can do in his absence is do what he’d want me to do, to have these guys in the right place for when he returns.”

Mitchell coached Toronto for four-plus seasons in the mid-2000s and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 2007. His teams won 156 games and lost 189, making the playoffs twice in his four full seasons. He was fired after an 8-9 start in December of 2008. He was given the title of associate head coach when hired by Saunders in June of last year. He coached two Wolves games last season when Saunders was ill for a January game against Denver and in March when Saunders missed a game at Toronto so he could be with his ailing father in Cleveland.

Known as a tough-love coach in Toronto, Mitchell said he had gotten older and wiser. “You have to be fair,” Mitchell said. “Players don’t mind tough love if the last part of it is love. ... There will be days I walk out of that gym and they won’t like me. But they know I have the organization’s best interests at heart first, their interests second, and I have to bring those two things together.”

Newton, meanwhile, said more than once that Saunders had assembled experienced front office and coaching staffs ready to handle just this sort of situation.

“Flip would be disappointed if we weren’t up to the job,” Newton said. “He brought us here, and put us in this situation. ... We’ll go about doing our day-to-day jobs as if Flip were here, because we know what Flip’s vision is.”

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