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In some ways, Monday night won’t be any different for Ryan Saunders. He has been on the Target Center sideline as an opposing assistant coach before. He has been connected to the coaching business his whole life, and he knows how volatile the profession can be. He saw his father fired multiple times, including once from the franchise that calls this building home.

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There will be something different as well. Saunders will be on the bench as a member of the Denver Nuggets coaching staff, an assistant under Michael Malone, coaching in Target Center for the first time since he was fired by the Timberwolves in 2021. It’s one thing to see other coaches come and go through arenas they once called home. It’s another thing to be the one walking into that arena, to shake the hands of those you used to work with and around, to smile while the well wishes are sent your way.

Twenty-two months removed from one of the most unusual firings in recent memory, Saunders returns with a team that fancies itself a Western Conference contender and not a hint of bitterness in his voice for the way things ended with the Wolves.

“Just looking forward to seeing familiar faces,” Saunders told The Athletic. “Looking forward to seeing fans that I remember seeing in the crowd, especially before COVID hit. That’s something that you kind of forget about too. In professional sports, jobs come and go, and all of a sudden you might be in a different situation than you were the day prior. The people you saw every day, the ushers, the security guards, the parking attendants, people who are just coming by your office to say hello from Mayo Clinic Square, you don’t see them anymore. I’m really looking forward to seeing that.”

Saunders went 43-94 in parts of three seasons as the head coach of the Wolves, nowhere near the hopes he and the Wolves had when he was surprisingly elevated to take over for Tom Thibodeau in the middle of the 2018-19 season. The decision at the time was a direct rebuke of Thibodeau’s stewardship of the franchise and handling of the Jimmy Butler trade-demand fiasco. Owner Glen Taylor bypassed other more seasoned assistants on the staff, including former standout player Ed Pinckney, in favor of Saunders, who had never been a head coach but did have 10 years as an assistant in the league.

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Taylor wanted to move sharply away from the Thibs Way, and he viewed elevating Saunders as a way to reconnect with the only period of success the franchise has ever had, when Flip Saunders coached Kevin Garnett to eight straight playoff appearances and the 2004 Western Conference finals. Ryan Saunders was just 32 at the time, but the Timberwolves were in dire straits after Butler blew everything up, so Taylor went back to the Saunders family to try to fix it.

It had the makings of a fairy tale, the child following in his father’s footsteps to help turn around his hometown franchise. But it wasn’t to be. After he was hired as president of basketball operations, Gersson Rosas made Saunders the permanent head coach , but his only full season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. He also dealt with injuries to Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell, who was acquired midway through that first season, had to help Towns through the loss of his mother at the start of his second season on the job and found himself in the middle of the organization’s response to the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, which spurred global protests against social and racial injustice.

“I think as coaches we’re ultimately there to support and help serve the players,” Saunders said. “You do get thrown into situations that maybe were really unexpected. Looking at it from a smaller scope, you become a better leader in those moments.”

Navigating all of the chaos of those two-plus seasons gave him a crash course in handling adversity, something that is a part of every head coach’s job description.

“You look back on it, all those things do start coming to mind, and it is a lot,” Saunders said. “But I think it’s just something that helps us all form our opinions and our philosophy on how we handle things in the future.”

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Players and people throughout the Wolves organization swear by Saunders’ character, by the earnestness with which he approached the job and the desire he had to restore the franchise to respectability. But all of the respect in the world couldn’t paper over a 7-24 record to open the 2020-21 season.

Rosas fired Saunders on Feb. 21, 2021, after a 103-99 loss to the Knicks in New York. While there is never a good time or a great way to fire a coach, the way things unfolded during Saunders’ exit didn’t sit well with many in the coaching fraternity. With Saunders’ wife, Hayley, about to give birth to the couple’s second child, Rosas still sent Saunders with the team to New York to start a four-game road trip.

Moments after he was fired in New York, word came that Rosas already had his permanent replacement picked out in Chris Finch, who was an assistant on the Toronto Raptors at the time. Hiring someone away from another staff in the middle of the season is highly irregular, and Rosas was put under heavy scrutiny for the lack of a search and for sending Saunders out to New York when he likely already knew a change was coming.

Saunders never blamed Finch, who led the Wolves to a playoff berth last season, for taking the position, but he declined to comment on the way the process unfolded.

“I grew up in this business. I know these things are temporary in a lot of ways,” Saunders said. “You just accept the information that you’re being told and then you move about with your life.”

Saunders’ primary concerns, he said, were seeing his family react to the news, worrying about the people he hired to join his staff when he got the permanent job and coming to grips with the fact that he would have to relocate to continue coaching in the NBA.

“I just love Minnesota so much,” he said. “I love the people there. You realize that some things would have to change after that moment where you’re going to be working somewhere else. That was the biggest thought.”

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If there was a saving grace to the massive disappointment, it was the sabbatical year Saunders took in 2021-22. He had opportunities to join coaching staffs but decided to take a year away and spend time with his wife and two young children. It was the first time in 13 years Saunders did not coach, allowing him to be a dad to his son, who is now 3 1/2, and newborn daughter.

“For me, the biggest thing was being able to be a very present family man,” Saunders said. “Those are moments that I won’t be able to ever get back and really did enjoy.”

He taught a class on sports leadership at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul but also made sure he was never far away from the league. Saunders kept his same daily routine of watching film, reaching out to coaches to talk about the game and going to visit organizations to learn from them. From the moment he was fired, he never doubted he would get back into the league, and sitting out a year allowed him to be a little more selective on his next landing spot. It didn’t hurt that he would be sitting at home and there would be a knock on the door from several Wolves players, including Towns, just dropping by to visit and check on him and the family.

The Nuggets called this summer offering him the chance to join a team with the two-time MVP in Nikola Jokić and genuine designs on making a run to the NBA Finals. Saunders had plenty of familiarity with people up and down the Nuggets organization. He has been friends with Tim Connelly, who left to take over the Wolves front office this summer, dating to when they were both in Washington while Flip was head coach. He has known new Nuggets lead executive Calvin Booth from Booth’s time in Minnesota. He also coached with Nuggets assistant David Adelman in Minnesota. And Flip welcomed Malone to tag along with the Timberwolves for a while after he was fired as head coach in Sacramento.

For Saunders, it’s been a big change from an organization that was rebuilding and trying to find its footing to one that has a real identity around Jokić and feels like it is ready to take the next step.

“You go into work and focus on improvement,” Saunders said. “Coach Malone sets a great tone with that. They’ve had a lot of success over the years, and the continuity, you can tell, it really helps this group. It’s been fun to be a part of a different type of environment on a daily basis.”

He returns with no bitterness in his voice. He said he is thankful to Glen and Becky Taylor for the opportunity they gave him and believes the experience, as difficult as it was, prepared him for whatever comes next. He keeps going forward because the game is all he knows, and he can’t wait to catch up with some familiar faces when he gets off the bus.

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“Minnesota’s always going to be home,” Saunders said. “I’ll always have so much love for the community and everything that Minnesota has given me. ”

In so many ways, his job in Minnesota was more than just a coaching job. He was a symbol for something larger, the former ball boy everyone wanted so badly to succeed. In Denver, he is just a basketball coach, reveling in the work for one of the very best teams in the league.

“It is nice in certain moments of just being here and be about the work and just be about how I can help Coach Malone in any way possible, and this team,” Saunders said. “It’s a great, great organization, a great group.”

(Photo of Ryan Saunders: Alonzo Adams / USA Today)

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