It was announced today that the Washington Wizards and coach Flip Saunders have verbally agreed to a four-year contract that will be worth a reported 18-million dollars - a high price but a highly sought-after, respected and successful coach.
But is Saunders the right coach for this team? I'm torn on that particular question. Flip is clearly an above-average coach. He is renown for his masterful offensive schemes, strategies and principles. He has a personality that will not conflict with the team's stars - Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison. He has a history of winning at a respectable clip and he has experience which cannot be overlooked considering he's taking over a veteran-laden ball-club.
However, one of the things Saunders is not renown for is his defensive strategies which have been characterized as gimmicky and gambling. These defenses, many of which are zone, will gamble for steals and play quasi-dangerously - something that might work with ball-hawks like Arenas and Butler. I question whether this will help the Wizards come playoff time, when the opposing team has 4-7 attempts at successfully game-planning against them.
Saunders, for as good a career winning percentage as he is credited with, has always had a problem winning the more important, crucial games. When coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, they made it out of the first round just once. He then headed to Detroit, fresh off an NBA Championship, and couldn't get past the Eastern Conference Finals (though credit must be given just getting to that point).
From everything that I just typed, Flip seems awfully reminiscent of the Wizards' last full-time coach - Eddie Jordan. True, he (Saunders) is a better version but their styles, their strategies, their strengths, their weaknesses - it's all so similar. As you may or may not remember, Jordan was known for implementing the Wizards with one of the most successful offenses in the league. He also had excellent rapport with his players - players who defend their former coach to this day. Unfortunately for Coach Eddie, he had one glaring problem. He was defensively challenged. His brilliant strategy to "Protect the Paint" did nothing but have Wizards players frantically scrambling out to 3pt shooters in a desperate, unsuccessful attempt to stick a hand in their face. It was literally like watching chickens with their heads cut off (excuse the graphic analogy). The Wizards, under Eddie Jordan, were one of the worst teams in NBA history at defending the 3pt line and hold NBA records for most threes given up in a season.
The choice of Flip Saunders is a safe, unspectacular selection. He will likely lead the Wizards to a 45-50-win record and a potential 2nd-round playoff birth. He won't cause any problems and will be regarded as a brilliant move by Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld. Will the Wizards get exponentially better under the command of Coach Flip? Probably not, but they will get better and that's what most fans are looking for. Personally? I would have liked to seen Grunfeld go after a coach that offers what the Wizards and any team with aspirations of hanging a championship banner need - defense. Tom Thibodeau was a guy I had my eye on as potential coach. He didn't have the experience and we don't know much about him but what we do know is that he is a defensive guru/mastermind. For a team as defensively challenged as the Wizards, he would have been my choice.
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