Doc Rivers needed some time to write the speech that he\u2019ll give when formally inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The storytelling, that part was easy. He\u2019s a natural at that.<\/p>\n
But what Rivers wound up learning during the trial-and-error process of speechwriting was that the words he\u2019ll say from a stage in Springfield, Mass., aren\u2019t going to be about him. They\u2019re going to be about everyone else who played a role in him getting to that moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go through this journey of writing it and you realize it has nothing to do with you in a very good way,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cPeople are happy for you, and I am happy for them because they got me there. You hear all your life, \u2018You don\u2019t do anything alone.\u2019 When you get in the Hall of Fame, you really understand that you don\u2019t do anything alone. It\u2019s all the coaches in your life, your parents, the players. It\u2019s a thankful journey and that\u2019s what the Hall of Fame should be about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Numbers prove he\u2019s among best<\/p>\n
A winner of 1,194 regular-season games as an NBA coach \u2014 and that\u2019ll be all, he insists, saying his retirement is a real one \u2014 Rivers ranks sixth in league history. The only others ahead of him: Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley, all of whom are Hall of Famers, so it was obviously a lock that Rivers would be joining them.<\/p>\n
He won a championship with Boston in 2008, won 114 playoff games as a coach, played 13 seasons, was an All-Star once, has been a broadcaster and \u2014 if he goes back to work, and his family currently has a pool that he will \u2014 he\u2019ll be a broadcaster again.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s more to life now. The Illinois native and Marquette legend has seven grandchildren, a house on the water and can\u2019t play enough golf. He\u2019ll still be involved in the game, somehow. It just won\u2019t be as a coach. It\u2019ll be as a Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoc is a proven, extraordinary leader and communicator during his renowned NBA coaching career,\u201d Milwaukee general manager Jon Horst said when the Bucks hired Rivers in 2024. \u201cAs a championship coach, he\u2019s widely respected as an established innovator, and the right coach to lead our experienced and talented team.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was, until he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Injuries derailed every chance the Bucks had at being a winner last season, and when the season came to its dismal close Rivers was fairly certain it was the end for him as well \u2014 after 27 seasons on the sideline, and whole lot of missed moments along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing that people have no idea about is the toll it takes on you and the family component,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cIt is rough. You\u2019re never home. You make sacrifices and your family has to make them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
That won\u2019t be an issue now.<\/p>\n
A hit from the beginning<\/p>\n
Rivers won coach of the year in his first season, taking a team he called \u201cthe 301s\u201d in Orlando and leading it to a 41-41 record. On the surface, there\u2019s nothing special about going .500. But the Magic were supposed to be bottom dwellers that season and Rivers used a preseason ranking of the league\u2019s top 300 players as inspiration \u2014 since none of those top 300 were playing for the Magic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat season gave me great confidence,\u201d Rivers said.<\/p>\n
He has some regrets, of course. Critics have long pointed to the 10 losses that Rivers-coached teams had in Game 7s, by far the most of any coach in NBA history. And his fans will retort by pointing to his 114 playoff wins, fourth-most in NBA history. But the biggest do-over, if Rivers had such an option, would be changing his mind about leaving the Celtics for the Clippers in 2013.<\/p>\n
Rivers got to the Clippers not long before the end of Donald Sterling\u2019s ownership of the team; Sterling made racist comments and was banned by NBA commissioner Adam Silver.<\/p>\n
\u201cI underestimated what a great situation I was in, and I took that for granted, like you can just go anywhere and create that,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cI messed that one up. But then when I go to the Clippers, the team is pretty damn good. The organization, it was the worst organization in sports with the ownership problem. Within a week there, I remember telling my assistant, \u2018We\u2019ve got a lot to do here.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
The championship with the Celtics in 2008 \u2014 Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, the stars of that team, will be together again to present their former coach for his Hall enshrinement \u2014 was an obvious high point for Rivers\u2019 career. There were other moments he\u2019s particularly proud of as well, such as delivering on a promise that he made to someone who barely played for him.<\/p>\n
Tyronn Lue succeeded Rivers as coach of the Clippers. Lue played 11 games for Rivers in Orlando during the 2003-04 season; that was all the time it took for Rivers to be convinced that Lue would one day be a coach. He told Lue to call him if he ever wanted a job and Lue took him up on it. Rivers wound up going to the Hall of Fame, and few within the game would be surprised if Lue joins him there one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the stories like that that you think about,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cRajon Rondo played for me in Boston. We had a very tumultuous relationship when I coached him and now, I probably talk to Rondo more than probably than any player that I coached.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s what the game does, Rivers said. The lucky ones get guided along the way. He played that role with players like Rondo \u2014 who coached with Rivers \u2014 and Lue, and in Rivers\u2019 own case, it was Riley who gave him the push he needed.<\/p>\n
Riley and Rivers clashed at times during their player-coach relationship, and their biggest fights came when Riley was telling Rivers that he belonged in coaching.<\/p>\n
Riley was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was doing TV, he kept writing and sending me these freaking messages about getting into the fray,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cHe knew it. And here I am, going into the Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doc Rivers needed some time to write the speech that he\u2019ll give when formally inducted into the Naismith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,413,559,383,2660,2093,4169,142,97472,5968,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,2483,18,6763,2084,396,1355],"class_list":["post-812613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-clippers","tag-basketball","tag-championship","tag-clippers","tag-coach","tag-doc-rivers","tag-fame","tag-family","tag-game","tag-good-way","tag-hall","tag-la","tag-la-clippers","tag-laclippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesclippers","tag-nba","tag-pat-riley","tag-player","tag-river","tag-season","tag-team","tag-tyronn-lue"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117101128832997943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812613","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=812613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}