Minnesota Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders dies

Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations and coach Flip Saunders has died at the age of 60, the team announced on Sunday.

Saunders, whose coaching career spanned four decades and included head coaching stints with the Timberwolves (twice), the Detroit Pistons, and the Washington Wizards, had been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma in June. But other than the early September announcement that he would take a leave of absence, the updates regarding his condition had been in short supply while assistant coach Sam Mitchell took over the team.

NBA players remember Flip Saunders

In a live chat on Oct. 1, however, Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune provided the kind of clarity that, sadly, was a foreshadowing of the tragedy to come.

“There’s no question things have changed dramatically since the team announced his diagnosis in August, back when it quoted his doctors saying the cancer was very treatable and curable,” the longtime Timberwolves beat writer wrote. “Since then there have been changes to the way his body handled the chemotherapy (and maybe how much cancer they’ve found) that have made it life threatening. Everyone involved has gone radio silent because of the family’s request for privacy and federal patient-privacy laws, etc., but between the complete silence, the lack of people visiting as far as I can tell apart from his immediate family and very inner circle while he remains hospitalized here in Minneapolis and the things I’m hearing second-hand, well, none of it is good.”

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Saunders is survived by his wife, Debbie, and children Ryan, Mindy and twins, Rachel and Kimberly. Ryan is an assistant coach for the Timberwolves.

PHOTOS: Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders through the years