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Not a better guy in the NBA than Flip Saunders: Mary Schmitt Boyer

(AP)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- I'm surprised Flip Saunders ever talked to me again.

Our first meeting, in the early 1990s, was awkward, to say the least -- an awkwardness that was entirely my fault.

But Saunders, 60, who died of cancer much too soon on Sunday, became a good friend during my 25 years of covering the NBA -- and even after I left The Plain Dealer in 2014.

We met in a bar on Rush Street in Chicago, very late one night during the NBA pre-draft camp. I was covering the Minnesota Timberwolves for the St.