Flip Saunders

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Time sure does fly, but sometimes, you wish it wouldn't.

Five years ago, on May 19, 2015, the Timberwolves won the 2015 NBA Lottery.

This set up Flip Saunders and the team to select Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns with the No. 1 pick. 

Although, at this time, there was some steam that Jahlil Okafor could go first. 

The night was a truly special one for a variety of reasons. Of course, for the team, it was huge. Towns has become a cornerstone player. His 50.4 win shares during his career are almost double the next highest player from this draft class (Montrezl Harrell has 26.2). 

What we didn’t know is that it would be one of the last memories we’d have of Flip. In October later that year, Saunders passed away after battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  

This video below exemplifies the passion Flip had for this team: 

Saunders was especially emotional speaking with media members after the team had secured the No. 1 pick. He had lost his father, Walter, a week before the lottery. Flip thought just maybe his dad had something to do with the ping pong balls falling in the Timberwolves’ favor.

“He was a huge fan of the Timberwolves. The funny thing about my dad is when I would take jobs in Detroit and I went to Washington, I’d come home and he’d still be wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves shirt,” Saunders said. “I couldn’t get him to change shirts. He always wanted to keep the Timberwolves shirt on. Maybe because that was my first job and I was here so long, but  he was a huge fan and I can remember two months ago when he was watching games and we would talk. He would say you just  gotta build and hope you get another good player. Maybe he had something to do with it. As I said to our guys, ‘My dad . . . and I have luck. It was a great day.’”

About a month later at the draft in Brooklyn, Towns got off the phone with Saunders. 

His first words, “I love him already!”

It didn’t take long for Saunders and Towns to form a bond. Unfortunately, it didn’t last as long as it should have.

This lottery gave the Timberwolves the No. 1 pick, but in retrospect, the night was a lot bigger than that.

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Wolves Winning 2015 Draft Lottery Was A Memorable Night For More Reasons Than We Knew

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In October, it will be five years since Phil “Flip” Saunders died from complications with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

It’s easy to get caught up in the daily demands of the NBA, and when we do, we often forget to reflect on just what Flip meant to his Minnesota Timberwolves franchise.

We will receive a reminder of Flip’s impact on Minnesota basketball on Sunday, April 5, when Fox Sports North re-airs the Wolves’ Oct. 28, 2015, game against the Los Angeles Lakers at 6 p.m. CT. The 112-111 Wolves win was their 2015 season opener and the team’s first game after Flip’s death.

Whether you were directly affiliated with the team at the time or not, the week of Flip’s death was hard on everyone. That, of course, is a testament to Flip’s legacy.

You can’t measure or compare grief, but the pain felt by Flip’s players and colleagues was tangible during what should have been a joyous lead-up to their upcoming season.

The start of the 2015-16 season was supposed to be centered on No. 1 draft pick Karl-Anthony Towns' NBA debut, Kevin Garnett’s last stand of his 21-year career and Ricky Rubio’s return from his left ankle surgery.

Instead, the season opener came just three days after Flip’s passing.

How was the franchise supposed to focus on anything other than the death of the man who had been its glue for so many years?

“When something like that happens to someone so special to all of us, there’s no blueprint to know what’s right and what’s wrong,” Towns said the morning of his NBA debut. “It’s just something you have to deal with individually. But as a team, we’re doing a great job of supporting each other tremendously and making sure we all have each other’s backs.

“The vision that we have for ourselves is what he had. He instilled in us that we can be a special team if we just come together and do something for one common goal.”

With Flip’s vision in mind, the Wolves played for each other. They played for Flip.

The season opener was in Los Angeles, but the Wolves and Lakers still had something special planned for the man who not only impacted his own team but who also shaped the lives of so many of his NBA peers.

The Wolves took the court at Staples Center wearing gray warmup shirts that read “WE” with “Flip” over the heart. Flip and former general manager Milt Newton had planned to use “We” as the season mantra to enforce the importance of playing for each other rather than trying to rack up individual stats and accomplishments.

“He had these signs made up last year that on one side it was ‘WE’ and if you turned it upside down it was ‘ME,’” interim head coach Sam Mitchell said at the Oct. 28 morning shootaround. “We talk to our players all the time. This is a ‘We’ game. You win together, and you fail as one. It’s not about you. I remind them every day that it’s about your teammates; it’s not about you. If you take care of each other, then the person you’re going to end up taking care of is you.”

The Lakers wore gray and gold T-shirts that read “FLIP” above an MPLS Lakers logo. Sadly, those warmups were brought up a little over two months ago when Ryan Saunders was asked to remark on the sudden passing of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and the seven others involved in the tragic Jan. 26 helicopter crash.

“I remember just seeing (Bryant) at the free-throw line during the National Anthem wearing a ‘FLIP’ shirt and him paying tribute,” Ryan said the day after Bryant’s passing.

The teams honored Flip’s life with a moment of silence then were tasked with finding the strength to mask their emotions and just play basketball.

When Fox Sports North analyst Marney Gellner asked Rubio whether or not he wanted Flip’s passing to be something that was on his mind during the game at the morning’s shootaround, Rubio said, “I hope it’s something that doesn’t affect.

“Of course we’re going to miss him, and I think he’s going to give us the strength to keep pushing through tough moments.”

But it’s safe to say Flip probably had some influence on the way Rubio played that night.

Rubio played lights out that night, providing his team with quick offense right from the get-go and stepping up as the leader the young team needed during one of the saddest days in Timberwolves history.

Rubio finished with a game-high 28 points and 14 assists — which were career-highs at the time — and just one turnover.

“It’s been a tough week,” Rubio said after the game. “It’s hard to explain. Everybody goes through a lot of pain, but we came here to fight like he would have said to us, ‘Compete. Go out there and try to win a game.’”

Kevin Martin added 23 points off the bench and was 11-for-12 from the free-throw line, which was crucial in the Wolves’ comeback from a 16-point deficit late in the third quarter.

“Nobody except for Ricky really played well tonight, but we just grinded,” Martin said in an interview with Alan Horton after his team’s win. “This was an emotional win for us, and you know who we did it for. We did it for Flip and the Saunders family.”

Other leaders were quieter throughout the night. Kevin Garnett knew Flip for 19 years, which was half of his lifetime at the time of his coach’s death. He played only 13 minutes and recorded four points and seven rebounds (quite the KG stat line) in his first game as a Timberwolf without Flip.

Garnett didn’t say much (if anything) to the media that week. He was out of the locker room before reporters had a chance to ask players questions after their 112-111 comeback win over the Lakers and can’t be found in any of the player testimonial videos the Wolves made to commemorate their late coach.

Garnett, who never seemed at a loss for words, couldn’t articulate what the death of the man whom he’ll be next to on the Timberwolves’ Mount Rushmore meant to him. Instead, he simply shared a photo of him sitting next to Flip’s parking spot. Nearly five years later and that photo has the power to break your heart all over again.

Again, as Towns said, there was no blueprint for grieving back then — there still isn’t almost five years later and never will be.

Those five years seem to pass by like nothing when you’re outside of the Saunders family and get caught up in wins, losses, stats, trades, you name it. But the five years also seem to feel like no time at all when you consider how ingrained Flip’s legacy is in the team that his son is now leading.

We see Flip in the way Ryan treats every Timberwolves and Lynx and Target Center staff member with equal amounts of respect and dignity.

We see Flip in Ryan’s passion for the game and his in-game ticks that require a double-take because of how much they mirror those of his father.

We see Flip in the way Gersson Rosas, Ryan and Towns have stressed the importance of family and “WE” throughout the 2019-20 season.

As Rubio said, “Even though he’s gone, he will stay with us forever.”

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For Flip: FSN To Re-Air First Wolves Game After Flip Saunders' Passing

The 2014-15 season wasn’t particularly noteworthy for the Timberwolves.

They were a young team. Flip Saunders had constructed a roster of youth, led by Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine. The goal was to develop these players and if it ended up with the team landing a high draft pick (like Karl-Anthony Towns), so be it.

But there was a moment in this season powerful enough to capture the entire fanbase.

How did a 16-win team bring Timberwolves fans a game and a moment that they’ll never forget?

When Saunders made moves, he would work hard with his Basketball Ops department on scouting and all other basketball-related things, like any executive of a team would do.

But it wasn’t uncommon for Saunders to take the temperature among the team’s upper management regarding certain moves. 

What would the fans think of this move? How about the media?  

Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest when you’re in the trees. Saunders likely wasn’t the only executive to do something like this, but he is probably the most social. 

Before the 2015 trade deadline, there weren’t many huge moves expected to be made by the Timberwolves. Maybe a buyout here. Perhaps trading a veteran for a second-round pick there.

But as the deadline approached, there was more and more chatter that Kevin Garnett, the best player in franchise history, was coming back home.  

Jeff Munneke, the team’s Vice President of Fan Experience and Community Youth Basketball at the time and the current Vice President of Fan Engagement, might have known before anyone else, perhaps a few weeks before the deal went down. Munneke had been with the franchise from the very beginning and was there during Saunders’ first stretch with the Timberwolves. Saunders was also Munneke’s basketball camp coach when Munneke was in seventh grade. The two had grown close and Saunders trusted Munneke. Trusted him enough to tell him pretty much anything. Munneke knew about this deal before Woj.  

“One day he came in, this is probably a week to 10 days prior to the trade and he said, ‘Hey, I want to show you something’ and it was a press release that was more or less ready to go,” Munneke said. “We were trading for KG and I read it and I was like, ‘Come on,’ he was like, ‘No this is going to happen,’ and I’m like, ‘Flip, how in the world are you going to orchestrate this?’ So, I actually had a little bit of a run up to it, but I was sworn to secrecy, so I couldn’t say anything at the time about it. And you know, I’m just sitting there, chewing my fingernails off just in nervous anticipation saying, ‘Oh my God this is happening.’”

Eventually, as Munneke’s nails became shorter, the trade deadline approached. 

Saunders could finally use that press release that he had ready to go. On Feb. 19, 2015, the Timberwolves acquired Garnett from the Brooklyn Nets for Thaddeus Young. 

Surely, Young was a better player at this point in his career. But it wasn’t about that.

It was about bringing back someone who meant so much to a franchise for 12 seasons. Someone who quite literally gave his blood, sweat and tears for a franchise and its fanbase.  

For Saunders, this wasn’t so much of a basketball trade. But a legacy trade.

“He looked at that as maybe even a responsibility not just to the organization and its fans, but to the community to bring Kevin back and make sure that Kevin finished his career as a Minnesota Timberwolf where he belonged,” Ryan Tanke, the team’s Senior Vice President of Ticket Sales at the time and current COO said. “I think Flip knew that this was going to be a big deal. He certainly wanted to bring fans and people in the community in to celebrate that with because that move was bigger — I don’t remember what our record was then that year or where we sat, but we weren’t going to the playoffs. That was never, I don’t believe, the point. It was about celebrating a Minnesota icon and the greatest player to ever wear a Minnesota Timberwolves jersey and to bring him back home with his family. That part was this undeniable sort of emotion that everybody had, including Flip.”

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After the trade, the Timberwolves gave Garnett his time to process everything and get things settled in Minnesota. Garnett wasn’t one who particularly liked change – especially sudden change in the middle of the season.

Five days after the trade, the team held Garnett’s introductory press conference on the skyway level of the Target Center.

Garnett didn’t miss a beat. He took over the room in all the right ways. Everyone knew Garnett wasn’t going to play in many games for the Timberwolves. His knees had gone through more than 55,000 minutes at this point in his career. If he could bring the infectious attitude to a young and impressionable team, that would serve as a win. And to get a fanbase back bought in on the franchise, that was a bonus. 

At the press conference, Garnett remembered the familiar faces. Of course, there was Sid Hartman. Harman, who was 94 at the time, was known to give pretty much everybody grief. Not for KG, though. Instead, Hartman literally bowed to Garnett. 

Garnett gave a shout-out to Kare 11’s Eric Perkins, “What up, Perk?!” Garnett said flashing his pearly whites. 

There was a younger reporter who tried to ask Garnett a question. Instead, he fumbled his words and let out a little squeak. Garnett laughed and said, “Take your time.” 

Saunders, “He has a tendency to get media like that, just speechless.” 

There were some laughs, but everyone there understood. 

“There’s just so much emotion. You grow up like idolizing certain people,” Tanke said. “So to be on the other end asking a question, it’d be like sitting down with Michael Jordan. I’d be speechless.”

I was at this reporter’s wedding a year or two after. His speech was much better than his question to KG.

Garnett was curious about his favorite spots to hang out downtown. A lot can change in seven-plus years.

“I'll be honest … I don’t even recognize downtown,” Garnett said. “There were one-ways that are two-ways now. I'm asking about some of the restaurants from when I was here and some of those have closed or moved. I just got to get reacquainted with the city.”

One thing that was apparent throughout the press conference was how happy Garnett seemed. For Saunders, that’s what was most important. Saunders wanted Garnett’s career to end where it started. 

“He’s really happy,” Saunders said. “I know that. He showed excitement coming in seeing people. He’s excited to be back here and that’s as important to me as anything.” 

The Game Of The Season[[{"fid":"101344","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","alignment":""},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"3":{"format":"default","alignment":""},"4":{"format":"default","alignment":""}},"attributes":{"style":"font-size: 13.008000373840332px; font-weight: normal;","class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"4"}}]]

Garnett’s first game with the Timberwolves was nearly a week after being traded. That’s not a normal thing, but Garnett is also not a normal guy.

Nothing about the game Garnett was playing in was particularly noteworthy. The Timberwolves were going into the game with just 12 wins at that point. Their opponent, the Wizards, were solid, but they weren’t a huge draw for an audience.

Again, this wasn’t about basketball. Timberwolves fans had nearly a week to try to figure out how they could score tickets to this game. For the entire season, getting tickets to a game wasn’t exactly hard. For this game, though, it seemed nearly impossible.

“All of a sudden, you’ve got a surge of season ticket holders who may have already given away or sold their tickets,” Tanke said. “How do you take care to make sure those people who are closest to the franchise can actually come in and be a part of that celebration?” 

Timberwolves fans are typically late-arriving fans. With tipoff at 7:07 p.m., fans generally arrived at 6:45 p.m. Not on this night.

Fans were in the arena as soon as the doors opened, just waiting to see Garnett step on the Target Center floor again wearing a Timberwolves jersey. 

“I just remember it being such a stark contrast from the games we had played up to that point, especially recent games to that point because this was late in February and when you have a team that is not in a playoff race, games just don’t really have a lot of energy and life to them, typically,” Fox Sports North’s Marney Gellner, who had been covering the Timberwolves since 2002, said. “Then this one came along and I just remember being in a back hallway by the media room before I had even gone out to the court and hour before the game, and I could already feel it there because there were so many more people around there was a buzz around, just the atmosphere even long before we saw KG was there, it was a really weird feeling and then I remember turning the corner of the back hallway to the point where I could see the court and walking onto the court, and this is still probably 45 minutes before the game. KG had not come out to shoot warmups. Nobody had seen him, but the crowd had already started to file in. There were so many people that early and there was such a buzz and an electricity and just this energy. It was the weirdest feeling because I remember thinking ‘this night is going to be special’ but I honestly didn’t expect it to be that way an hour before the game.”

KG finally stepped onto the floor and the place went absolutely nuts. There was so much emotion from everyone in the building. There were grown men wearing KG jerseys . . . and crying. The Kid was back. 

As expected, Garnett’s introduction was about as passionate as it gets. There was Kanye West’s “Homecoming” playing in the background.

With the fifth pick in the 1995 Draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves select . . .”

“You felt like you were in a movie,” Tanke said. 

“The whole place just blew up. I’m getting chills talking about it right now. It was just so cool. I was in the section 101 tunnel, all the staff members, nobody wanted to miss anything about that return and how electric it was.”

The Target Center was sold out. While the building’s capacity is just over 19,000 people, you could have convinced anyone that 40,000 people were in the building. 

For Gellner, this was a long season. Being on-air for 82 games when a team isn’t winning can be challenging. The dog days of February can be a real thing in an NBA season, and this was a chance for everyone to snap out of it. But for her, there weren’t any thoughts of the impact a game like this would have on TV ratings nor were there thoughts on how many more eyes would be on the broadcast on this given night. 

“I don’t think I ever thought once about how many more people might be tuned into the game. I was just embracing the significance of it and the excitement of it and we needed a jolt at that point and this was like the double-paddled jolt to the chest instantly,” Gellner said. “I don’t remember at all thinking about being nervous or any ramifications of TV ratings or anything like that. I just remember thinking how much fun it was and how much fun it was to talk about. It was a completely different storyline. The relevancy of KG’s return and just like what would he be like. How would he embrace it? What would we see? How was he going to look in his uniform again?” 

Garnett started and there were no signs of him being 38 years old or having bad knees. While he wasn’t as springy as we remembered from his MVP days, if you squinted, you could see the same KG we all grew to love.

Just 69 seconds into the game, Garnett blocked a shot from Nene and the crowd went absolutely nuts. His first field goal came with 3:32 left in the first half. Longer than he probably would have liked, but it was the 17-foot jumper that Garnett basically had patented during his prime. That being his first shot made with the franchise that drafted him seemed about perfect. 

It was clear that Garnett’s energy was rubbing off on his teammates. There were more cuts offensively. Defensively, there was attention to detail. By watching Garnett and his body language, you would have thought he was playing with this group for five years rather than five minutes. There were head rubs, butt taps and the pull-aside tutorials throughout the game. 

“His numbers weren’t the huge numbers that we were all accustomed to, but you could just see from a defensive standpoint, just his presence, his talking on defense,” Munneke said. “He had the will to win."

There are a lot of memories throughout this game, but the one that sticks out the most for people was the Jiggly Boy skit. 

During the second timeout in the second quarter, Timberwolves fan John Sweeney brought back the “Jiggly Boy” that he created back in 2003.  

Our Katie Davidson is writing more on the Jiggly Boy experience, but it’s something you can’t ignore if you’re discussing this game. 

Normally, Garnett isn’t one to look up at the scoreboard or to the crowd during a game. It’s all about the game for Garnett. No distractions. 

This night was a little different, however. After Jiggly Boy took off his football-styled Timberwolves jersey to reveal the “Welcome Home KG” painted on his chest, Garnett gave Jiggly Boy a salute.

“Usually, he is so locked in that he pays zero attention to fans or scoreboard activities or anything that’s going on outside of the actual game so I remember looking up at the jumbotron and seeing Jiggly Boy and first of all, even that the crown reacted to him the second they put the camera on him while he had his shirt on. He had the 15 jersey. For the fans to recognize who he was though was just hysterical,” Gellner said. “And then they kept cutting back to him. I thought, ‘Oh, this is a cute little bit,’ and then he stood up and took his shirt off and of course it was Jiggly Boy and we all got a good laugh. And then I was watching KG for his reaction and honestly was stunned that he pointed up to Jiggly Boy and they had this interaction. And it wasn’t done. If I remember correctly, Kevin beat his chest a couple of times and smiled and pointed at him like twice. I just thought that was the moment.”  

But that salute wasn’t just for Jiggly Boy.

“That was him not just acknowledging that particular person, that was him acknowledging Minnesota.”

That video has more than 14 million views on YouTube. Basketball fan or not, you can feel the love and raw emotion in the video from Garnett. 

Behind an energetic Target Center and Garnett’s spirit, the Timberwolves won 97-77, just their 13th win of the season. Garnett finished with a modest line of five points, eight rebounds, two assists and two blocks. What he brought to the team on this night didn’t show up in the box score. Much like his entire career, the most valuable part about Garnett’s game were the things that didn’t show up in the box score (although, he’s filled up a few during his day). 

For as much as the crowd felt they owed Garnett, he made it seem like it was the other way around. Garnett, as seldom as he does, was embracing this moment.

“It felt like my rookie year, I’ll be honest,” Garnett said after the game. “With the energy and the anticipation. I looked in the crowd, I saw my friends and family. I’m glad my daughters were here to see that. It was just a special time. I can’t even put into words.

“I didn't know the city missed me like this. I don't think you could ever wish, or ever think that a city loves you like this but to see it is reality and I am very appreciative."

There’s a good chance the city didn’t know it missed Garnett as badly as it did until he was back. For better or worse, that’s how it goes sometimes. If one person who didn’t need that reminder, though, it was Saunders.

“One of the reasons I came back and talking to Glen (Taylor) about coming back was because of the fans of Minnesota and that’s what it is,” Saunders said. “ . . . I’ve never seen anything like that for one guy. Every time KG stood up, it was a great feeling . . . I just knew that he’d have an impact with everything. He’d have an impact with our players, with our fans, with our community.”

Garnett would play in just four more games that season and 38 the next, but Timberwolves fans just needed that one game. They wanted just one more moment with the player most had grown up watching. The player they watched turn from The Kid to the MVP to an NBA champion with the Celtics.

Who knew one game could create so many memories?

Fox Sports will be replaying this game on Apr. 1 at 7 p.m. CT. Gellner will be live-tweeting the game. 

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Inside KG's Return: The Kind Of Memories That Last Forever

Here at Timberwolves.com, we typically write articles that celebrate star players’ final or first time playing at Target Center.

Kyle Ratke thanked Vince Carter for his greatness on Feb. 4 and welcomed Zion Williamson to the league on Wednesday.

However, Wednesday night’s Wolves vs. Bulls game, even though Zach LaVine won't be playing due to a quad injury, had us reflecting on his time in Minnesota.

We make exceptions for those who’ve impacted us the way LaVine has.

When a player like LaVine plays for your favorite team — no matter how long his stay is — you don’t forget what he did for your squad.

In 2014, Flip Saunders took a chance on a gawky, 6-foot-6 kid from UCLA who played as if he towered over everyone else on the court.

LaVine oozed confidence while showing off his handle at the top of the key before popping a 3 in a defender’s face, while sending a crafty dish to Gorgui Dieng or Nikola Pekovic in the paint, and of course, while he wound up for one of his signature dunks that silenced fans until he gave them what they wanted by exploding at the rim.

He got us hooked then and has only improved ever since.

We all remember that awful day when LaVine tore his ACL going up for a layup against the Pistons back in February of 2017. The third-year player was averaging 18.9 points a night for the Wolves and shooting 38.9% from the 3-point line before his season — and career with Minnesota — came to a close.

The injury gave us reason to believe LaVine would never again match the athleticism he once dazzled his peers and fans with.

LaVine missed the Bulls’ first 42 games of the 2017-18 season but it took him less than 40 seconds into his first game back to hit a 3 and become Chicago’s next star. His stats dropped slightly in the 24 games he was available for that season, but he’s been a top-20 scorer in the league ever since.

This season, LaVine is averaging a career-high 25.5 points per game and is back to shooting 38% from 3-point range despite upping his attempts to 8.1 per game.

LaVine has completed 88 of his 92 dunk attempts this season, and NBA.com lists that he’s attempted 11 different variations of his beloved dunk shot.

His on-court talent has made him an obvious fan favorite in Chicago, but it’s who he is as a person that makes him unforgettable in Minnesota.

Remember the photos from LaVine, Anthony Bennett, Thaddeus Young and Andrew Wiggins’ first trip to the Minnesota State Fair? We were reminded of just how youthful LaVine and Wiggins were from the photos of them sliding down that colorful slide with absolute joy in their eyes.

Remember how LaVine and former Wolves head coach Tom Thibodeau used to playfully tease each other?

Or how he dedicated his dunk contest trophy to the late coach who gave him a chance?

I’ll root against him two nights out of the year, but other than that, I’m team LaVine.

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No Return To Target Center For LaVine, But He'll Always Be Part Of The Family

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Gallery | Hometown Court Named In Honor Of Flip Saunders

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Minneapolis-St. Paul – The Flip Saunders Legacy Award was presented to Cole Aldrich prior to tip-off at Monday night's game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Flip’s widow, Debbie Saunders, and Flip’s son, current Timberwolves Assistant Coach Ryan Saunders, presented Aldrich with the award to recognize his excellence in community service.     The Flip Saunders Legacy Award was created to honor one Timberwolves player each year who has demonstrated the greatest impact in the community, to honor the life of Flip Saunders and his commitment to community involvement. The winner is chosen by a vote among current rostered players.     “We are so proud of Cole and what he has done for our local area and communities across the region,” said Debbie Saunders. “Our family has gotten to know Cole well since his return to his home state and we have been impressed with his desire to give back. I’m very happy the Timberwolves team have chosen him for this award.”     Cole has shown his commitment to the community through his ongoing relationships with organizations such as Children’s Minnesota, Starkey Hearing Foundation, Salvation Army and the Kids in Need Foundation. For the past two years, Cole has hosted families from Salvation Army around the holidays in a suite to watch the Timberwolves game and surprised them with presents. He regularly stops by Children’s Hospital to visit patients and appears on the hospital’s in-house TV station. He also works with Kids in Need Foundation to give backpacks to students in need and help them get ready to go back to school.     “I am truly honored to have been chosen to receive this award,” said Aldrich. “While I didn’t play for Flip, his presence is felt throughout this organization and his reputation for serving the community is a legacy that lives on. I am fortunate to be in a position to give back and I am very thankful to the Saunders family and my teammates for this recognition.”

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Cole Aldrich Chosen as Flip Saunders Legacy Award Recipient

The Timberwolves honored Flip Saunders on Thursday night, putting his name in the rafters to look over the Wolves forever.

The tribute was for a man who helped change basketball in the state of Minnesota.

Here are some of the social reactions from fans, players and media members throughout the night.

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Basketball World Reacts To Flip Saunders Night

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Gallery | Flip Saunders Night

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