Flip Saunders: A Plan So Crazy, It Might Just Work

Flip Saunders is an obstinate man.

But, who can really fault him? After all, it was his self-assurance and headstrongness that catapulted him from a middling CBA coach into the all-governing C.O.P. (coach, part-owner and president of basketball operations) of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

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Make no bones about it, though, Saunders’ coaching philosophies are outdated and archaic. He can use Twitter all he wants to proclaim his groundless love for three-point shots; however, when all empirical evidence suggests otherwise, actions simply speak louder than tweets.

More explicitly, over the past 17 seasons Saunders has served as an NBA head coach, in 15 of those years his teams finished within the bottom-third of the league in three-point attempts. Even more alarmingly, in six of the said 15 seasons, his squads finished within the bottom-four, per Basketball-Reference.

For as long as I can recall, Saunders has been steadfast in his reliance on the “Hawk” offense — an offensive scheme aimed to engender open looks from the midrange areas through off-ball screens, and motion to free his post players up for quick isolation post-ups.

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Such an offense was extremely productive for its time — especially between the late 1990s to the early 2000s, not coincidently, the time period Saunders enjoyed the bulk of his coaching success — but in 2015, the high volume of long twos his strategy inherently generates goes against all modern analytical principles.

He does run a handful of effective plays, however. In particular, he has a penchant for putting his most promising players in the most advantageous positions. For example, throughout the majority of last season, Flip consistently played to his highly-hyped then-rookie Andrew Wiggins‘ strengths — namely, limiting his perimeter ball-handling responsibilities, and letting him operate within a single-dribble’s stride away from attacking the front of the rim.

Chiefly, the 1-3 pick-and-flare he ran for Wiggins curated plenty of breathtaking plays for the reigning Rookie of the Year down the stretch of the 2014-15 season.

For the most part, however, Saunders’ coaching leaves a lot to be desired.  The Wolves’ utter lack of outside shooting certainly doesn’t help his offense’s inherent floor spacing woes.  The Ricky Rubio, Thaddeus Young and Nikola Pekovic induced lineups a healthy Minnesota team relied on last season is simply a theoretical paint-congesting nightmare.

However, the NBA is changing. To combat the small-ball epidemic currently infiltrating the association, defenses are/will slowly adjust(ing). Most notably, expect teams to start switching and going under on the majority of their pick-and-roll coverages next season.

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Front offices are loading up on long, versatile, “position-less” defenders, and modeling their roster skeleton after the Milwaukee Bucks in an effort to carry out the above-mentioned scheme.  In doing so, a cohesive defense can effectively negate the efficaciousness of the stretch 4, while containing the chaos a penetrating ball-in-hand playmaker can inspire off of the spread pick-and-roll.

Consequently, as NBA defenses fine-tune their roster fit to take away the drive-and-kick game, and concurrently, limit the 4-on-3/3-on-2 propositions a screen-and-roll/dribble-handoff based offense curates, offenses will have to accordingly recalibrate to take advantage of the mismatches a switch-heavy D will inevitably spawn.

This could mean the return of the post-game; but more as a playmaking avenue with the primary purpose being to attract double teams and hard digs, to ultimately generate open looks from three-point range.

And, if Saunders’ recent Q&A session with Zach Lowe of Grantland is of any indication, the Timberwolves have built a roster and blueprint to fully capitalize on the association’s latest strategic evolution. Here is a snippet of what Flip had to say about the subject:

"“The reason teams don’t post up is that nobody can do it anymore. Teams would like to do it. The post-up is conducive to small ball. If a guy can score down there, the defense has to trap, and you can get open 3s. And that’s what we’re all trying to get — open 3s.”"

Luckily for Saunders, he houses several thoroughbreds who can successfully carry out the tenuous task. Chiefly, the trio of Wiggins, Nikola Pekovic, and Gorgui Dieng all rank within the top 50-percentile in terms of post-up efficiency — all three producing at a PPP (points per possession) rate greater than 0.84 last season, per NBA.com’s SportVU Data.

In the case of the gangly 20-year old Canuck, he showed immense promise in his inaugural campaign. With his unique concoction of elite leaping ability, blinding first-step, and advanced footwork, he has a chance to develop into a rare, perimeter-oriented throwback high-post savant.

Late in the season, Wiggins also showed glimpses of delivering pin-point passes to his hard-cutting brethrens as he gained the concentrated attention of opposing defenses.

Meanwhile, Andrew’s partner on the wing, Shabazz Muhammad, finished his injury-shortened year ranked within the top 80-percentile, producing over 0.97 PPP on every opportunity he got to operate on the low block.

Thus, when you conservatively add 7’0″ rookie center, Karl-Anthony Towns — who’s passing out of the low post in Summer League made every T-Wolves fan giddy with hope — into their army of capable back-to-basket operants, Minnesota can potentially wreak havoc through the attention their post-up negotiators (on the perimeter and interior, alike) can engender.

What will ultimately determine the effectiveness of the Timberwolves’ post-centric offense is A) their post players’ ability to pass out of digs and doubles, and B) their surrounding players’ consistency in knocking down open 3s.

We know Towns can fling the ball out of the block, and likewise, Pekovic has proven to be a decent passer, but can Wiggins, Muhammad, and Gorgui Dieng make opposing defenses pay for doubling down?

Can Zach LaVine — who made a blistering 46.0 percent of his catch-and-shoot three-point attempts after All-Star break last season — evolve into the T-Wolves’ floor spacer?

What are the chances Nemanja Bjelica, the reigning EuroLeague MVP, emerges as Minnesota’s playmaking 4 — ala Boris Diaw and Draymond Green? Specifically, in addition to stretching the floor, can he put the ball on the deck and initiate the drive-and-kick game in a pinch?

Over the past decade, modern day offenses and defenses have been exchanging tactical haymakers. With the newfound freedom perimeter playmakers enjoy with the elimination of the hand-check, the Mike D’Antoni/Stan Van Gundy famed spread four-out pick-and-roll offense became the staple of every NBA attack.

Defenses, as they have throughout the annals of NBA history, would evolve and adjust. In particular, flocks of teams began to copy Tom Thibodeau’s force all actions to the sideline and zone-up the screen-and-roll handler with the big dropping back defensive scheme.

In turn, offenses countered by running misdirection pick-and-rolls, usually with the aid of a dribble-handoff.

Now, as we get set to enter the 2015-16 season, teams are building a roster full of 6’6″ to 6’9″ pterodactyls, capable of carrying out a Warriors-esque switch everything D.

On paper, the Wolves possess all the key elements to deploy the blueprint of defeating the latest defensive trend.

Does this mean Minnesota will make the playoffs this year? Their chances are extremely slim. The team’s core is still painfully young, and it will take some time for each of their own to find their respective niches in the association. Additionally, it certainly doesn’t help the Timberwolves’ cause playing out in the West.

But, one thing is for certain: the ingredients are there, and Flip Saunders is talking as if he’s a suitable chef. For the sake of long-suffering Wolves fans, here’s to hoping for a progressive and competitive upcoming year.

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