Report: Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders has downturn in health
Flip Saunders’s health has taken a turn for the worse and it’s unlikely that he'll return to the sidelines this season, according to Jerry Zgoda of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Talking to readers in a web chat Thursday, Zgoda said that it seems that Saunders, who is battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma, has reacted badly to the chemotherapy or that more cancer may have been found.
Here are Zgoda's comments on the matter:
“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. 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. I’ll just say this, and this is just my own opinion, if he pulls through this: I doubt very much he’s back this year, it’s probably unlikely he coaches again just because of the stress inherent doing both those jobs and I think there’s a pretty good chance he doesn’t return full time to either job.”
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