Glen “Big Baby” Davis was a supporting player on the 2008 Boston Celtics and, as a result of the success he enjoyed as a rookie in the NBA, the former LSU star will always be referred to as “NBA Champion Glen Davis.” However, Davis doesn’t appear to credit his former coach, Doc Rivers, at a high level for the success of that Celtics team and he wasn’t shy about expressing his feelings on a recent podcast with Chris Broussard of FOX Sports.
On the show, Davis went off on Rivers through a number of different avenues, but the headliner was referring to his old coach as “lucky as hell” when it came to the circumstances that brought him the credibility associated with a title victory.
“What Doc had in ’08 was special and he was lucky as hell. Lucky as hell. The year before that they was wearing trash bags, but then the next year they win it, now he is one of the best coaches ever? I’m just not feeling that. You know what I mean? You give credit to KG. You give credit to Paul Pierce. You give credit to Ray Allen. Those are the guys who made sure whatever Doc needed to be done, got done.
And see now it’s easy for Doc to do his job. And then you give credit to Danny Ainge. That’s the one you give credit to. Because I know multiple times he had to talk to Doc, just to say ‘Hey Doc, leave em alone. Hey Doc, ease up.'”
It is actually fair of Davis to point out that Rivers wasn’t exactly the hottest coaching commodity in the league prior to the 2007-2008 season. While he had earned a Coach of the Year honor in Orlando, the 2006-2007 campaign saw Boston win just 24 games and, if not for the arrival of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, the past could be very, very different.
From there, Davis moved to a more recent topic, criticizing Rivers on the way the end of his stint with the Los Angeles Clippers went down after the 2014-2015 season. In short, “Big Baby” was hurt and he lets loose on Rivers for mishandling the ailment.
“I don’t like what he’s doing right now. I don’t like his organization, what he’s doing, his teams. We had something in ’08 and that was it. You know what I mean? That’s what that is. So far, like, I didn’t like how the way he handled me on my exit. Yeah, hold yourself accountable, but at the same time I had a broken ankle. I won a championship with you and you don’t even really call me.
I’ve got to beg you to call me. My agent has to beg you to call me. My ankle’s broke. And you just told me — they pulled me to the side when I played against Houston and told me, ‘You’re not playing the way you need to play. You’re not doing this.’ My ankle was broke. My ankle was broke. And they’re shooting me up, shooting me up, shooting me up every day to play. My ankle was broke.”
Accusations of injury mismanagement are nothing new for Rivers, as former Clippers forward Jared Dudley also indicated “had to sacrifice” a great deal while with the organization on Rivers’ orders. In this case, though, that isn’t the passage that will generate the most attention, as Davis went after a championship-winning coach for his credentials both before and after claiming the ultimate glory.
In the end, Rivers gets the last laugh with a significant amount of power and influence in Los Angeles while Davis is out of the league. That just didn’t stop the player from going supernova in this instance.
