Denver coach Mike Malone's telephone is ringing off the proverbial hook these days, nearly a year after Sacramento fired him and five months after the Nuggets hired him as their new coach.
It didn't ring much at all as 2014 turned to 2015 – two weeks after the Kings told him to go away and paid him to do so – until Timberwolves coach and president of basketball operations Flip Saunders called.
The two knew each other as all coaches in the NBA fraternity do, but not well. Saunders called, inviting him to join the Wolves on a couple of West Coast trips so Malone could be back around the game and give his opinions about Saunders' team.
"It meant the world," said Malone, the son of longtime NBA coach Brendan Malone but a man who called himself, like Saunders, a self-made coach. "It wasn't like we went back years. Two weeks after I get fired and Flip Saunders is extending an invitation to me to spend time with him and his staff. That doesn't happen very often."
Saunders told Malone he called because he had been fired three times – in Minnesota, Detroit and Washington, from every NBA coaching job he ever had – and told him something about the experiences.
"You hear from everybody a day or two after you've been fired and two weeks later, no one is calling you," Malone said. "Life goes on after you're fired. I don't want a pity party, I don't want people calling me every day anyway. But Flip called…"
That's why Malone said he's grieved these last five days since Saunders died on Sunday at age because of complications from his cancer treatment, even though Malone didn't know him well for all that long.
That's why Malone and Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly were bound for Minnesota after Friday night's game against the Wolves so they could join other executives and coaches from around the league at a private memorial service on Saturday that will celebrate Saunders' life.
