Gilbert Arenas meets Flip Saunders

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Wow, this is news. Coach meets players before season starts. Who would have thought about doing that?

Supposedly Flip Saunders has been travelling all over … all over, uh, America to meet his new players, uh, well, his old players or rather the current players for the Washington Wizards, where Flip will be coaching.

The big key was getting to know Gilbert Arenas, because now that he knows him, Gilbert will straighten up and give a full effort all the time. cough cough cough. Good luck on that one, Flip. This Washington Wizard team is driven by two players that like themselves more than they like to play defense and you should like yourself if you want to be loved, but maybe hate yourself if you want to play great defense, because it is hard!

But we digress. Agent Zero is not going to suddenly change into a complete player from an offensive talented entertaining player just because Gilbert and Flip Saunders met for a friendly chat. No, Washington is going to have all the same problems they have always had with that crew. Some nights they explode with offense and just beat you and other nights they take too many plays off and lose.

Gilbert Arenas realizes his wax image plays better defense

It seems Flip never introduced himself in Detroit and that is why he is gone.

Saunders didn’t forge a similar relationship with the Pistons. Despite helping guide Detroit to three consecutive Eastern Conference finals, Saunders never won much locker-room support. He quickly lost favor with Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace because the pair thought Saunders was emphasizing offense at the expense of defense – the foundation of the Pistons’ success when they won the 2004 championship under previous coach Larry Brown.

Saunders also wasn’t as strong a disciplinarian as Brown. When he tried to get tougher in his third season, it was too late. Early in the 2007-08 season, Rip Hamilton lashed out at Saunders from the bench without any rebuke from the coach. TNT analyst Chris Webber, who played for Detroit during the 2006-07 season, said during the 2008 playoffs that the Pistons didn’t listen to Saunders. Saunders was then fired after Detroit lost to Boston in the East finals.

source

Yeah, 3 conference finals was a lousy job by Flip Saunders. What was he thinking? Eventually the Flip way was not the Detroit way and the players just tuned him out. Such is big time sports and big time egos.

Image: Zuma Press

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As always, any NBA Basketball related comments are welcome.

More blogs about basketball.