{"id":713067,"date":"2026-04-18T09:25:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T09:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713067\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T09:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T09:25:28","slug":"doc-rivers-ready-to-close-book-on-nba-coaching-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713067\/","title":{"rendered":"Doc Rivers ready to close book on NBA coaching career"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Doc Rivers has an NBA Finals win and a Coach of the Year honor on his ledger and is set to join the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this year. <\/p>\n<p>But that sounds like it\u2019ll be where his resume will end as a professional basketball coach. <\/p>\n<p>Rivers, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/12\/sports\/doc-rivers-out-as-bucks-coach-after-three-disappointing-seasons\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who stepped down from the Bucks<\/a> after an ugly 32-50 season, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ringer\/status\/2045230821926179277?s=46\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">told The Ringer founder Bill Simmons<\/a> on Friday that he is \u201cdone\u201d as an NBA coach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe met about seven weeks ago, me and ownership. We had a great meeting,\u201d Rivers said on \u201cThe Bill Simmons Podcast.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39124504\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260412_KRR_gx1_77.jpg\" alt=\"Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers reacts against the Philadelphia 76ers in the third quarter at Xfinity Mobile Arena. \" class=\"wp-image-39124504\"  \/>Bucks head coach Doc Rivers reacts against the 76ers in the third quarter during a regular season game at Xfinity Mobile Arena. Kyle Ross-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey asked me what I wanted to do. One of the owners says one plan is, \u2018If we do this, you can hang in there for a year or two.\u2019 I literally said, \u2018Oh, no, no, no.\u2019 \u201cI told my coaches, I\u2019m done. I loved coaching. Loved it. I had a lot of success at it, had way more ups than downs. But at the end of the day, I\u2019ve given 47 years or whatever, I don\u2019t even know how old I am \u2026 with no off time. I just wanted a break. I want to get away. The grandkids and just life in general, man. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, I can tell you, Bill, I think it was time, so I\u2019d be surprised if I coached another game, I\u2019ll put it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2025-26 season, his second full campaign with Milwaukee, turned into a disaster thanks to injury and constant trade rumors surrounding superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was limited to 36 games. <\/p>\n<p>The losing record marked Rivers\u2019 first full losing season since 2006-07 with the Celtics.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48412620\/inside-fractured-relationship-giannis-antetokounmpo-milwaukee-bucks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania reported<\/a> that there was a \u201cdisconnect\u201d between Rivers and the players this season in a length expose on what went wrong with the Bucks this year. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/10\/sports\/doc-rivers-calls-out-espns-shams-charania-for-inaccurate-bucks-story\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rivers later called out the story<\/a> to say it was \u201cso inaccurate that I don\u2019t even have enough time to go into it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It remains clear what is next for Rivers. He previously worked as an analyst on ESPN\u2019s top announce team before leaving in January 2024 to join the Bucks\u2019 sideline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doc Rivers has an NBA Finals win and a Coach of the Year honor on his ledger and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,1688,103,2660,102,121,3871,6,66,3647],"class_list":{"0":"post-713067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-basketball-hall-of-fame","10":"tag-bucks","11":"tag-doc-rivers","12":"tag-milwaukee","13":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","14":"tag-milwaukeebucks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-media"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}