Why Doc Rivers is perfect coach for Clippers right now
Doc Rivers doesn't want this job.
If he had his way, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling would have a far more healthy world view and Rivers — one of the most respected and revered head coaches in the NBA — would be allowed to push his team toward a championship in a working environment free of racism.
But if anyone had to have this job, thank goodness it's Rivers.
The 52-year-old former point guard who spent one of his 15 seasons playing with the Clippers "a million years ago," who came to Los Angeles last summer after his tenure as championship coach of the Boston Celtics, is the perfect man for this unfortunate role. And three days after racist comments alleged to be Sterling's were first revealed by TMZ, Rivers battled through his own fatigue and emotional emptiness to showcase his typical class and thoughtfulness.
In the midst of the playoffs and having made the choice to keep contending for a title rather than consider a possible boycott, he cancelled practice leading up to today's Game 5 against the Golden State Warriors because, well, it was the human thing to do. Rivers, who admitted that he slept 45 minutes leading up to the Clippers' Game 4 loss and who took blame for the defeat afterward, is nothing if not human.
"I just felt like (the players) needed to breathe," Rivers said in a 30-minute conference call that included the non-sports media such as Inside Edition and CNN. "They've been inundated with this. They've really had no time with their families. I just think they need time. Obviously, in most cases we would be practicing on the floor and doing a lot of stuff today.
"But you know, right now it's more than basketball. This was a non-basketball decision that I thought I had to make."
It's not as if Rivers' refreshing sensibility is a secret. He has long been a favorite among the news media, partly because of his comfortable personality but also because of the genuine understanding he always appears to have for those around him. That ability to understand and share his own perspective is clearly a family trait, as his 26-year-old son, Jeremiah, recently shared a string of thoughts on Twitter that spoke volumes about their family and why their father is so well-suited for his situation.
When Rivers was a TNT analyst in 1997, his family's home in Shavano Park near San Antonio burned to the ground and suspicion immediately arose that this was a racially-charged event. So when fans in the social media world began claiming that they would no longer support the Clippers because of their shamed owner, Jeremiah was quick to counter with his view of why that was the wrong way to go.
"People want to #BoycottClippers because of one man?" Jeremiah Rivers wrote Saturday. "My house has been burned to the ground, animals tortured and burned as well. Along with anything we ever loved, and held treasured, because of the color of my dad's skin. We lost everything and had to start over. Did we hate the collective of people, culture, and race (whose) skin was responsible for our hardship? No."
Safe to say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Still, Doc Rivers admits that he isn't ready to engage with the man who allegedly shared his plantation-esque perspective on those ugly audio tapes.
"I was asked (by someone with the team), 'Do I need to talk with Donald?' " Rivers said. "And I passed, quite honestly. I don't think right now is the time or the place, for me at least. So I just took a pass."
There are more pressing and personal issues to deal with at the moment. For starters, Rivers said the team was still discussing different ideas for how to handle the crowd tonight at the Staples Center. The fans, just like so many players, executives, owners, and media , are incensed and appalled. The question now, with the game set to tip off hours after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announces Sterling's punishment, is how best to handle what will inevitably be a unique and bizarre scene.
"I don't know which way we'll go with that," he said. "We don't know the right answer. I can tell you this. We want to do right here. We want to make the right decisions here. We're doing our very best to try to do that. If we feel like that is something that will help our fans, then it will be done. If we feel like that's something they don't need, then we won't do it.
"We want them to cheer for their players, and their team, because it's still their players and their team and it will be their players and their team."
Well said, as always.
