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Flip Saunders talks about his assistant coaches' roles and how the Wizards chart plays

After most of the scrum left Flip Saunders, I was able to get a couple quick questions in with him one-on-one about the roles of his assistant coaches and how his staff charts different plays.  A transcript is below the jump.

Star-divide

Bullets Forever: Can you talk a little bit about what time of niches your assistants will fill and what type of roles you think they will fill on your staff?

Flip Saunders: They each have their own niche ... and as I get into it, they'll evolve a little bit more.  There's no question that Randy [Wittman] is doing a lot defensively with what we're doing as far as the team.  Don [Zierden] does a lot offensively, he knows so much.  Sam [Cassell] is going to be a guy that's going to do things, him and Wes [Unseld Jr.], as far as working with players and how they're doing with their lives.  So they all have their niche as far as what they're doing, but they'll evolve as we get into it.

Bullets Forever: You said a couple times that you had someone tracking plays.  Without giving away too much, of course, what type of things are you looking for with that?

Flip Saunders: What you're looking for is to see the consistency of plays, your efficiency with plays.  You're hoping that the frequency of your plays is the same as their efficiency.  You hope you're running the best play the most amount of times.  We track a lot of plays. Now, not everything we do is based on stats, but it's based on all the tools that can help us.

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I thought Milt Newton did a lot of the 'player lives' stuff ...

Guess the young kids need more hand holding than we thought?

Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It.net and Bullets Forever.

by Kyle Weidie on Sep 29, 2009 2:08 PM EDT reply actions  

They needed to give Unseld Jr. something to do

other than draw up terrible plays.

Ridiculous Upside, where developing talent and winning are not mutually exclusive.

by Jon L on Sep 29, 2009 5:40 PM EDT up reply actions  

Hey Mike, I think that’s Mike Jones on one side of Flip Saunders (talking after the first day of practice) – is that you on the other side?

http://www.nba.com/wizards/video/2009/09/29/saunders.miller.jamison.wizards/index.html

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Sep 29, 2009 8:32 PM EDT reply actions  

Definitely Him

Facebook: Video:

I’m such a stalker. Ha, but it’s nice to put a face to the brilliant analysis and writing… Who knows, within time, he could take Michael Lee’s job.

My swag was phenomenal.

by se7en on Sep 30, 2009 12:23 AM EDT up reply actions  

Thanks

Yes, it was me, staring off into space, making it seem like I wasn’t listening when I was.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Sep 30, 2009 12:25 AM EDT up reply actions  

Michael Lee?

Nah – he’s definitely got the face for TV…

I’d say Ivan Carter better watch out….

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Sep 30, 2009 12:31 AM EDT up reply actions  

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