Flip Saunders was fired as Timberwolves coach on Feb. 12. On Thursday, he was hired as coach of the Detroit Pistons, who won the 2004 NBA title and came within one game of repeating that feat this season.

On more than one occasion, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor talked to Saunders to see if he was interested in returning to coach the Wolves this season. Saunders had been replaced on an interim basis by Kevin McHale, team VP of basketball operations.

"I talked to him generally about if he wanted to consider that," Taylor said Thursday. "Kevin and I said we would talk to him. But he just said he thought not. We never pursued it any farther. I don't think we really parted under the worst circumstances. It was kind of like, if he wanted to come back and look at some changes and do some things. ... He just said he thought it would be hard to do, and I never pressed it after that."

Saunders is so highly regarded in the NBA that there never was any doubt he was going to get a top job again.

Pistons coach Larry Brown burned his bridges in Detroit even before this season. And once it appeared that Brown was gone, there was no doubt that Joe Dumars, Pistons president of basketball operations, was going to hire Saunders. All that was necessary was to agree on a contract.