I am an unabashed Doc Rivers fan.
It’s hard not to be. He is, by all accounts, a coach in the truest sense of the word. He rallied the 2008 NBA champion Boston Celtics around the idea of “ubuntu,” a word of Southern African origin, which translates to, “I am what I am because of what we are.”
If you can’t get behind that, then, well, that says more about you than it does Rivers.
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Those Celtics — led by Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen; coalesced by Rivers — were one of the NBA’s all-time great teams, winners of 66 games, owners of that season’s top defense (98.1 points allowed per 100 possessions) and its best net rating (+10.8).
Those Celtics probably would have repeated in 2009 had Kevin Garnett not injured his knee, and they nearly won it again in 2010 had Kendrick Perkins not injured his knee before Game 7 of their second NBA Finals in three years against the rival Los Angeles Lakers.
There is another famous coaching story behind that, too. Following a February 2010 win over the Lakers, Rivers demanded $100 each from players and staff and stuffed $2,600 over a ceiling tile inside what was then Staples Center, promising to return the money if they returned for the Finals. And, against most odds, they did, as a No. 4 seed — reaching Game 7 against Kobe Bryant’s charges, even — before, once again, succumbing to injury.
Rivers always said those Celtics — Garnett, Pierce, Allen, Perkins and Rajon Rondo — never lost as a healthy starting five. He was right, of course, but he said it so often that it became a running joke. Which he had a lot of, too. Mostly about players and their fitness in training camp. Everyone arrived in the best shape of his life at the start of every year.
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“He’s 15 pounds lighter,” he’d say with a smile, no matter the player.
He could be serious, too, especially on worldly matters. I’ll let you decide whether you think he was right, but he stands for what he thinks is, and his players respect him for it. That is why Garnett, Pierce and Allen will present him into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Rivers was great with the media, too. He is great in the media. He’s a tremendous personality, someone a lot of people would want to play a round of golf with — someone who has played a lot of rounds of golf with a lot of people. The man’s a good hang.
He was a heck of a point guard, too, playing by a coach’s credo. A Chicago prep legend, a Marquette product and a second-round draft selection in 1983, he made the 1988 All-Star roster in his 13 seasons. He fell just shy of 10,000 points and 5,000 assists for his career.
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His 50-win Atlanta Hawks lost to Larry Bird’s Celtics in an epic Game 7 of the 1988 Eastern Conference semifinals. His 60-win New York Knicks lost in six games of the 1993 Eastern Conference finals to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. And his 62-win San Antonio Spurs took Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets to six games in the 1995 Western Conference finals. He appeared in 81 career playoff games yet never made the Finals.
But he was a winner, just as he was as a coach, even though he never again won a title.
He won Coach of the Year in his first season on the bench, as a 38-year-old with an Orlando Magic team that had no business finishing .500, and while he never won the award again, he served as one of the head coaches in the All-Star Game four times.
His teams won 50 games 10 times. He was one of the game’s best star-handlers. Not only did he manage the egos of Garnett, Pierce and Allen; he coached Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan on the L.A. Clippers. He shepherded Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons on the Sixers, and Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard with the Milwaukee Bucks.
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His stints following the C’s were increasingly less successful, but his teams were mostly in the mix. He wasn’t the best X’s and O’s coach, which may have contributed to a number of blown 3-1 series leads in the playoffs, but he was a master motivator. He relied too heavily on his veterans, often failing to develop young talent behind them, but everything he did was in service of winning at the highest of levels, and he did a damn fine job of it.
Only five coaches in NBA history — Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley — have won more regular-season games than Rivers’ 1,194. Only three — Phil Jackson, Riley and Popovich (all of whom belong on the Mount Rushmore of NBA coaches, along with Red Auerbach) — have won more playoff games than Rivers’ 114.
And if you were a team in crisis, you wanted Rivers as your coach. That says a ton, too.
If Rivers had not been the on-court face of the Clippers, as coach and president of basketball operations, through the Donald Sterling scandal, who knows what becomes of that franchise? He navigated Simmons’ meltdown with the 76ers and Antetokounmpo’s trade request (or lack thereof) with the Bucks. He too often had to explain for his team’s owner, because wouldn’t you want that gravelly voice as the mouthpiece of your franchise?
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You wanted him around, and for a guy who has been around the NBA continuously for the past 43 years, that’s not always easy to say. And now he’ll be around forever in Springfield.
A deserving plaque in the Hall of Fame. A good hang, indeed.