"The Washington Wizards fired Flip Saunders this morning. In an exclusive interview, Saunders spoke about his dismissal. Here are a few quotes from that interview:

* It's disappointing never being able to finish the job. It's always disappointing when your won-loss record isn't there, so changes in this situation are not unusual. It happened this morning.

*I thought we showed some progress, not in the win and loss column, but some of our young players, and as you know, in this business, improvement comes in small and very painful increments. A lot of times, it's not seen immediately, but more over time.

*I've been spent a lot of time with John and those young players and I've seen them improve, and the fruits of those improvements are going to be with someone else down the road. "