Flip Saunders Thinks Sam Cassell’s Big Balls Dance Cost Him a Championship

The 2004 Kevin Garnett-led Minnesota Timberwolves appeared poised for a NBA title run, until Sam Cassell and his damn Big Balls Dance ruined everything.

Or so claims Wolves head coach and team president Flip Saunders.

Saunders explained to the local media why he was not amused by Kevin Martin’s recent and costly tribute to Cassell.

Per the Star Tribune:

The league has frowned upon similar gestures in recent seasons, fining Marco Belinelli, Andray Blatche, Caron Butler and Jameer Nelson for much the same thing the past two seasons.

 

So was Martin paying homage to Cassell? “I think he started it,” Martin said. “Unfortunately, you can’t do that anymore.”

 

Saunders takes a rather dim view of the gesture as well, but he has his reasons. According to Saunders, Cassell injured his hip doing that gesture that night, and was injured and ineffective in the conference finals, which the Wolves lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games. […] “We lost a championship by that,” Saunders said. “When [Cassell] did that he had an avulsion fracture in his hip. … So, from that perspective, I’ve always been against that type of thing.”