Doc Rivers

Doc Rivers (born October 13, 1961, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) is an American professional basketball player and coach who, as head coach of the Boston Celtics, led the team to a National Basketball Association (NBA) championship in 2008.

Playing career

Rivers first emerged on the basketball scene as a star at Proviso East High School in the Chicago suburb of Maywood, Illinois, where he seemed destined to become the fourth member of his extended family to become a successful professional athlete: Jim Brewer, his uncle, and a cousin, Byron Irvin, both played in the NBA, and another cousin, Ken Singleton, was a Major League Baseball player. Rivers went on to play at Marquette University, whose then assistant coach Rick Majerus nicknamed him “Doc” because Rivers had worn a “Dr. J” T-shirt (in honor of NBA star Julius Erving) at a summer basketball camp.

While attending Marquette, Rivers helped the U.S. team capture a silver medal at the 1982 FIBA world championships. After three seasons at Marquette (over which he averaged 13.9 points and 4.6 assists), he entered the NBA draft and was a second-round choice of the Atlanta Hawks in 1983 (he completed his degree in political science in 1985). He played 13 seasons, the first 8 with the Hawks. Rivers went on to play 864 regular-season games in the NBA, including stops with the Los Angeles Clippers (1991–92), the New York Knicks (1992–94), and the San Antonio Spurs (1994–96). He retired after the 1995–96 season with career averages of 10.9 points, 5.7 assists, and 3 rebounds.

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Coaching career

Rivers became a head coach for the first time in 1999–2000, taking an Orlando Magic team that was projected to finish near the bottom of its division to a 41–41 record and becoming NBA Coach of the Year. Fired after a 1–10 start in 2003–04, he worked as a TV analyst before resuming coaching with the Celtics in 2004–05.

In 2006–07, Rivers’s third season as the Celtics’ head coach, Boston had a 24–58 record, and critics were calling for his job. With blockbuster trades in which the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves and Ray Allen from the Seattle SuperSonics, Rivers engineered the greatest turnaround in league history, guiding the Celtics on a dramatic journey to a 66–16 season that culminated in defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 4–2 in the best-of-seven finals. The championship was the franchise’s record 17th—and its first since 1985–86, the heyday of Larry Bird. The Celtics continued to field one of the best teams in the NBA through the end of the decade and into the 2010s, as the team qualified for the playoffs in each of the five seasons following its championship run, including a return to the NBA Finals in 2009–10 (a loss in a rematch against the Lakers) and a loss in the conference finals to the eventual-champion Miami Heat in 2011–12.

The Celtics were looking to turn over an aging roster following the 2012–13 season, but Rivers did not wish to participate in a rebuilding project, so Boston made an unusual deal with the Los Angeles Clippers that saw the Celtics release Rivers from his contract in exchange for a first-round draft pick from the Clippers. Rivers then signed a three-year contract to become the Clippers’ head coach and vice president of basketball operations. His first season with the team was tumultuous, as he guided the Clippers to a division title and franchise record for victories (57) but had to coach through a scandal involving racist comments made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling that broke into the news during the opening round of the playoffs. The team nevertheless advanced to the conference semifinals, where it could not upset the higher-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in a close six-game series that featured dramatic last-minute comebacks by both teams.

Rivers guided the Clippers to a tie for the second best record in the Western Conference in 2014–15, but he was hit with criticism for building a thin roster, as the Clippers played its starting five players more than any other team in the NBA that season, a situation that likely contributed to the team’s blowing a three-games-to-one series lead to the Houston Rockets in the second round of the playoffs. The Clippers had another season of at least 50 wins in 2015–16, but the team lost its opening postseason series after its two best players, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, both sustained season-ending injuries in the Clippers’ fourth playoff game.

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The team again lost in the first round of the postseason the following year, which marked the NBA-record fifth straight time that the Clippers blew a lead in a playoff series that they eventually lost. In August 2017 Rivers was stripped of his front-office role but was retained as the Clippers’ head coach. Paul and Griffin soon left the team, and the Clippers began a rebuilding effort. Despite Los Angeles having a roster filled with career role players and no stars, the team returned to the playoffs in 2018–19 (a first-round loss to the defending champion Golden State Warriors) behind one of the greatest coaching achievements of Rivers’s career. Rivers guided the Clippers to the playoffs in the next two seasons, but the team lost in the Western Conference semifinals both times. After Los Angeles was eliminated from the playoffs in 2020, Rivers left the Clippers. Shortly thereafter he became head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.

During each of Rivers’s three seasons in Philadelphia, the team finished first or second in its division but disappointed in the playoffs, never making it past the second round. Particularly stinging were the 2021 Eastern Conference semifinals, when the number one seeded 76ers lost to the Hawks, a fifth seed, and the 2023 Eastern Conference semifinals, when the 76ers led the rival Celtics three games to two but then lost two straight games. Shortly after the latter series, Rivers was fired. He returned to the broadcast booth for the beginning of the 2023–24 season, but in January he was hired as the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Personal life

Rivers was married to Kristen (née Campion) Rivers from 1986 to 2019. They had four kids together, all of whom became athletes. Most notably, Austin Rivers had a ten-year career in the NBA and at one point was coached by his father on the Clippers.