Doc Rivers may be making his final appearance as the Clippers head coach on Wednesday night when they face the Lakers in the final battle for Staples Center of the season. Rivers has a year remaining on his contract in L.A., but there are some around the league that think he’ll be moving on to a new stop after the two sides are expected to meet to determine his future soon.
The Knicks and Magic both will take a look at trying to land Rivers if he becomes available (or, potentially, as part of a deal like the one that sent him to L.A. in the first place), but to understand how we got to this point where Rivers’ tenure with the Clippers may end we have to look back to find out what went wrong. That’s exactly what ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz did in a deep dive into Rivers’ role in the break up of the Lob City Clippers, his general coaching philosophy, exit from the Celtics, and more.
After years of solid success, but never a breakthrough, last season weighed heaviest on Rivers and the Clippers core that eventually fragmented. The truth to the size of the rift in the Clippers locker room among players depends on who you ask, but it’s no secret there were significant issues that had caused the team to drift apart. The players weren’t the only ones that were not happy, though.
Arnovitz cited Clippers players being in agreement that Rivers had grown more distant from the team and increasingly frustrated by his inability to reach them or get more out of them. Rivers agreed with that assessment, noting that while he still wanted to coach he didn’t want to be coaching that team.
“I was aloof last year. I didn’t want to be here with these guys,” Rivers says. “I wanted to coach, but this team was a hard team to coach. I’m aloof anyway — I’m an introvert — and it was a hard group to like because they didn’t like each other. For me, you have to want to figure it out. And we lost the ability to want to figure it out.”
That’s always a possibility for a team that’s been together for years, especially if they have never had the success they believed they should have. The Clippers were a team with plenty of top end talent, but never were able to get over the hump and at some point, that made Rivers’ message wear a bit thin. When a coach can no longer have the effect on the team he once had it, unsurprisingly, makes the job far less fun.
Paul Pierce notes in the piece that Rivers’ success early in Boston is what made him able to drive points home to the Celtics and make them fall in line. When that didn’t happen in L.A., confidence faded and the message got lost. Now, Rivers insists he’s been reinvigorated by an influx of new players and a greater mix of young talent and veterans, despite the subtraction of the team’s two cornerstone stars.
“This group this season — it’s been a breath of fresh air,” he says. “It’s been a group that has followed. They allow you to coach them. They’re competitive as f—. We’ve got a bunch of guys who just want to compete. We have a formula — our pace, our attacks and our draw-and-kicks. We’re not good enough go off-formula and win. Defensively, our switches and our traps — we’re going against the grain.”
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“I love my job,” Rivers says. ” I love it here. I love the guys. I love the organization. It’s so much better than when I got here. So, most likely, yes.”
Having fewer stars has forced Rivers to be more of a tactician and actually coach the x’s and o’s of the game rather than spending as much of his time trying to manage egos. To that point, Rivers may have learned more about himself than he thought he would, especially when it comes to the type of team he wants to coach.
Many have pointed to how he pushed out of Boston to avoid a rebuild and how that’s very much like the situation the Clippers find themselves in now as a reason he’ll work a deal to leave this summer. But after finding some enjoyment in this season (and misery in the last) it’s possible he chooses to stick around this time and see this thing through in L.A.
