It didn’t take long for Doc Rivers to land an analyst job after he was let go by the Philadelphia 76ers in 2023.
What happened after that was one of the most shocking moves the league has seen in quite some time.
Although Rivers surprisingly left his analyst job in the middle of the 2023-2024 season to take over for a winning Milwaukee Bucks team that mysteriously fired Adrian Griffin, there aren’t any hard feelings from NBC. According to Front Office Sports’ Michael McCarthy, Rivers is going to be back with the network as an NBA game analyst.
Doc Rivers will be back to calling Sixers games
The three-season run with the Bucks didn’t work out the way that Rivers had hoped. When he took over for the Bucks in 2023-2024, they finished the regular season with a 17-19 record. The Bucks cracked the playoffs, but dropped out in the first round.
In the following year, the Bucks finished with a 48-34 record. Once again, they made the playoffs, but lost in five games. Rivers’ job security must’ve been low in 2025-2026. The Bucks couldn’t keep Giannis Antetokounmpo happy, as he struggled with rumors and injuries. The team finished with a 32-50 record. It’s unclear if Rivers knew something was coming–or if he was truly done coaching–but the ex-Sixer stepped down at the end of the regular season.
Rivers’ time with the Bucks was disappointing, but it didn’t leave a stain big enough to prevent him from entering the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame for his performance as a head coach. The player-turned-coach started his career in 1999 with the Orlando Magic. Rivers coached there for five seasons before taking over the Boston Celtics for a nine-year run.
The seven-season stretch with the Los Angeles Clippers didn’t add another championship to his resume, but Rivers did an impressive job for a struggling franchise. After the 2019-2020 NBA season, the Clippers wanted to move on from Rivers, and he ended up getting hired by the Sixers pretty quickly. He was the Brett Brown replacement.
In Philadelphia, Rivers coached for three years. The Sixers made the playoffs each time and won a series all three times. However, they couldn’t get over the second-round woes. After the 2023 run, the Sixers chose to move on from Rivers, which led them down the path of hiring Nick Nurse, who is still working on coaching the 76ers past round two.
Next season, Rivers will get a chance to call some of those games. With the Sixers maxing out on primetime games and having a schedule full of NBC spots, they’ll have their old coach offering analysis on the new-look team.
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