Latest / The Facts with Jamal 🇺🇸🦅👊 / #DocRivers: The most overrated NBA coach to be in the Hall of Fame.

Transcript

#DocRivers: The most overrated NBA coach to be in the Hall of Fame. · The Facts with Jamal 🇺🇸🦅👊

0:01
So the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame was back in August.
0:06
Some notable players had gotten enshrined, from the Candace
0:11
Parkers to the Amari Steinmeyers to even the 1996 US Olympic
0:18
Women's National Team that won the gold medal.
0:23
And if I'm forgetting anybody else noteworthy, I apologize
0:27
sincerely. But those are just some of the
0:28
notables that had gotten inducted as some.
0:34
However, there was a coach that had gotten inducted along with
0:40
them who, in my estimation, you can argue was probably the most
0:49
overweight coach to probably be in the basketball hall thing.
0:58
Doc Rivers, you know, by all accounts was he a great coach.
1:05
I mean, you can say he was, but to me, I've always felt he got
1:11
way too much praise and he got his share of criticisms.
1:17
Let's not get twisted. But I felt he never got enough
1:23
criticism simply for being, you can argue, really one of the
1:30
more disappointing playoff coaches in NBA history despite
1:34
having a title to his name. So here's the story about how I
1:40
feel even though Doc Rivers is a Hall of Famer, why he might be
1:46
the most overweight head coach in NBA history.
1:56
So Doc Rivers, you know when he took over the Orlando Magic in
2:02
19992000? Mind you, that was a franchise
2:07
that has seen better days at that point after the franchise
2:12
made it to the NBA Finals a couple years earlier with Shaq
2:16
and Penny Hardaway winning the charge.
2:19
But after those two guys left, the franchise struggled the next
2:23
few years. Doc Rivers, being this is his
2:27
first real head coaching job, got denied in 1999.
2:31
And actually, I won't give him credit for his time on Orlando,
2:36
albeit I was young when he had took over that team.
2:41
But the fact he was able to win coach of the year and the team
2:45
didn't make the playoffs, that's actually a credit to his turn
2:49
around after the franchise really stumble the previous
2:53
three seasons. By 2002, also won, he had
2:57
Orlando as one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference.
3:05
But then came unfortunately what would be the first of his main
3:09
playoff mishaps. See, 2002 stood out.
3:15
Probably what should have been the cowess of many of those
3:20
things. Now mind you, they went up
3:22
against Detroit in the first round.
3:25
Back then it was only 5 game series, not like the seven games
3:32
format for each round, but it was A5 game series.
3:39
And Long story short, they didn't do so well Well.
3:47
But then it was actually when they went up against Detroit
3:50
again the next year that it looked like they had the Pistons
3:54
on the ropes. It looked like they were going
3:56
to send them home. They were 31 and for whatever
4:02
reason, Tracy McGrady, Basketball Hall of Fame player
4:05
himself, he actually thought that the series was over, that
4:10
it was the five game format in the second round.
4:17
Only problem was the league had added two more games in the
4:21
second round. So it wasn't, you know, the five
4:26
577. No, it was 5777 before it
4:31
officially became 7 game series, all four rounds.
4:36
Apparently one of the T Max said about the series being over and
4:41
that Orlando was going to win. Then it got to the Pistons
4:46
locker room and they didn't take kind to that.
4:52
Long story short, Detroit was able to not only rally around,
4:56
but T, Max said. But Detroit was able to come
5:00
back and win the series. Four games to three.
5:04
Now you heard me mention three. One.
5:09
I want you to keep that in your memory.
5:11
Back After a couple seasons on Orlando, Doc was hired by Boston
5:20
a couple years later to help bring a championship to a
5:23
franchise that had not won it since 1986.
5:31
Spurred on with the acquisitions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen
5:35
from different clubs to try to help out Paul Pierce and the
5:39
franchise get over a hump. They actually did it in a series
5:45
against the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals.
5:48
They ended up being the Lakers in six games, bringing home
5:53
Boston their first championship in over 22 years.
5:59
So you figure, you know, after some I would say, OK, years in
6:05
Orlando, right? You know, Wayne coach a year
6:08
turning around that franchise, that Doc Rivers had finally
6:13
reached the Pentagon of basketball, he had won a
6:15
championship of a story franchise and that you would
6:20
think a few more would have been on the horizon as far as
6:24
championships right now, let's actually get to the real crux of
6:32
all this and how Doc Rivers, despite him being a Hall of
6:36
Famer, was really a coach you could not trust in the playoffs.
6:47
In 2010, the Celtics went back to the NBA Finals and once
6:52
again, Kobe and the Lakers were waiting for them.
6:57
The Lakers, who had won the title of the previous year over
7:02
Orlando, wanted to get revenge for the Celtics being them two
7:07
years old. In the drilling 7 game series,
7:11
the Lakers ended up prevailing over the hay is Celtics Now mind
7:17
you, and whether or not it would have made any difference, you
7:22
know hard to say. But Kendrick Perkins, the
7:27
Celtics big man was lost for Game 7 after suffering A crucial
7:31
injury. Him being gone a century kind of
7:36
gave the Lakers an opening for Paul Gasol to do what he had to
7:41
do as well as Andrew by. And mind you, game seven of that
7:46
series was essentially signed, sealed and delivered when Kobe
7:50
found why not test AKA medal world piece for what would be
7:58
the essentially game clinching shot in the final seconds.
8:06
The age-old Fenton and Celtics ended up losing to the Lakers in
8:10
the Finals, and despite the fact that they have lost, many people
8:18
thought that, you know, that agent corps was going to have at
8:21
least one more run on, right? Well, they actually did get to
8:26
the conference Finals in 2012 against the Big Three in Miami
8:31
of LeBron, Boss and Wade. But by that point, despite Miami
8:37
taking care of business, mostly thanks to a Game six legendary
8:42
performance from LeBron himself, that was essentially the end of
8:49
what was the original victory of my generation for the Celtics.
9:00
And that conference finals appearance would be as far as
9:04
Stock Rivers would go the rest of the time he was in the
9:09
playoffs. Couple years later, Doc Rivers
9:19
was hired by the LA Clippers to help turn around their franchise
9:24
after they, well, you kind of heard me on Thursday describe
9:28
their history to an extent. So I'll just leave it there.
9:34
And you know what? Doc actually did seem like the
9:38
ideal fit for the Clippers. They had a promising core, a
9:43
phenom and brake Griffin at the time, a defensive monster, and
9:47
DeAndre Jordan, one of the better floor generals.
9:51
And Chris Paul and reliable role players and even capable stars
9:57
and Jamal Crawford and JJ Redick along with Matt Barnes and
10:03
really a group of guys that just wanted to kind of in a way
10:08
escape the Lakers shadow. And you know what?
10:13
For about a brief moment, it looked like it was going to
10:16
happen. See, in case you forgot what
10:20
that time frame was called, it was called Lob City.
10:25
And I will admit, even as a basketball fan, whenever I was
10:29
able to watch them on TV, they were actually pretty
10:33
entertaining. They usually finish not at the
10:37
top of the Western Conference, but Oh well.
10:41
Three to the five seeds is usually where they finish, Which
10:46
was still pretty good all things considered, but the question
10:52
with that group was really just how good could they actually be
10:58
in the playoffs? Boy are you going to be in for a
11:06
non surprise. One notable playoff series,
11:11
which I thought was glaring, just so happened to be in the
11:17
2015 playoffs. Now see, let's go back to that.
11:24
Mind you, in the first round against an 18 San Antonio team
11:30
just flashed off of a championship.
11:32
The year prior, they had lost to Lob City Clippers in the Drury 7
11:37
game series. That upset series win.
11:42
Even though the Clippers technically dead at homecourt, a
11:46
lot of people thought, hey, maybe this could actually be an
11:53
opportunity for the Clippers to get to the mountaintop
11:56
potentially. But then came the next round
12:02
when the Clippers had faced off against James Harden, Dwight
12:06
Howard and the Houston Rockets. Everything looked promising for
12:10
the Clippers. I mean, they had a 2O or two,
12:13
one lead. And you would think, OK, maybe
12:18
the possibility is there that the Clippers for the first time
12:22
at that point could have gone to the conference finals.
12:28
But then came a couple games later where I remember thinking
12:34
to myself, there is no way this actually happened.
12:37
But so it was at what was then named the Stable Center.
12:43
Game 6, the Clippers were up three games to two.
12:49
And mind you, Houston was not playing all that well.
12:52
They weren't playing up to expectation.
12:57
And the thing was, James Harden was on the bench throughout most
13:01
of the second-half. He was Iraq and so you would
13:05
think, well, with their best player on the bench, that should
13:07
actually give the Clippers an opportunity to just send the
13:13
Rockets out of their misery and then move on to play the Golden
13:18
State Warriors in the conference final, right?
13:21
What happened after, unfortunately was I said
13:26
callous. You know, at one point when Doc
13:28
Lewis was in Orlando, as far as his soon to be playoff failures,
13:35
I actually wanted to clarify, yes, that might have been the
13:39
callous, but this was the one that accelerated.
13:43
So not only did Houston have the best player on the bench, but
13:48
the rest of the guys that were out there to Dwight Howard's
13:51
trouble recess. And those guys, they came back
13:54
against the Clippers somehow after they were down by 10 plus
13:59
points weight and early in the second-half and they came back
14:03
and won. I mean, I actually could not
14:07
believe the Clippers found a way to lose a game when they had an
14:13
opportunity to put that series away and focus on Golden State
14:18
in the next round. And Houston, somehow, without
14:22
their best player, was able to come back in the second-half and
14:28
won. Now, usually when something like
14:31
that happens, it's usually a full on sign that there was no
14:37
chance in hell that the Clippers are going to win Game 7, right?
14:43
Unfortunately, that's actually what happened.
14:47
Still in shock over the Game 6 collapse in the second-half,
14:52
Houston ended up seizing the momentum not only from that
14:55
game, but completely blowing out the Clippers in Game 7 at the
14:59
Toyota Center. And hardly not surprised when we
15:02
bounced back and helped the Rockets get to the conference
15:05
finals. So you would have thought, you
15:10
know, OK, a shell shock second-half of a performance by
15:16
the Clippers and subsequent losing in Game seven, you know,
15:21
you can recover from those things and be better as a team,
15:24
right? Unfortunately, I wish I could
15:29
say that was the case, but I mean, we are talking about the
15:33
Clippers here and more specifically the coach who was
15:37
there for seven years and Doc Rivers.
15:40
Now, mind you, I have bought up that 31 quote UN quote thing
15:46
earlier when I had talked about his time in Orlando.
15:52
That's when really we start to see Doc Rivers became now known
15:58
for more of his playoff failures than successes.
16:09
And you probably had to wonder, you know, even with the talent
16:15
they had at that point, you would've thought that a
16:19
conference finals appearance that they had been to at least
16:23
one, right? Unfortunately, that wasn't the
16:27
case. Whether it was a year 2O lead,
16:32
21 lead or three one lead, the Clippers under Doc River
16:38
stewardship with the franchise just never was able to get over
16:43
that hump to get to the conference finals.
16:48
And even at that point, some people start to look at him as a
16:52
coach a little bit differently. Even Phil Jackson, 11 time
16:56
champion as a coach now, had that infamous quote about Doc.
17:02
There was no one that has blown more three win leads than Doc
17:06
Rivers. Now at first I thought that was
17:10
kind of a jab kind of in a disrespectful manner.
17:14
But you know what? Phil Jackson was essentially
17:21
right. I mean, that's what Doc Lewis is
17:24
known for, unfortunately. And to make matters worse, when
17:30
the crazy year of 2019-2020 happened and the Clippers, you
17:36
know, who were among a handful of teams that were in the NBA
17:40
bubble at that point, they didn't want to be there.
17:44
And regardless, they still had to play basketball given the
17:49
challenging circumstances. So bubble play is going on.
17:57
And then the second round, they went up against a Denver Nuggets
18:02
team led by Nicola Yokich and Jamal Murray.
18:07
And just like the previous times beforehand, 31 lead that the
18:13
Clippers had. Now mind you, they had Guy and
18:16
Paul George and Kawhi Leonard to essentially help this team get
18:20
over that hump of trying to get to a championship.
18:24
And not surprisingly the next three games were a total
18:28
disaster. But game seven probably might
18:33
have been an all time. An all time really should show
18:41
of effort performances that Clipper seemed against.
18:47
The Nuggets could not hit anything from the outside.
18:52
They couldn't hit a three pointer.
18:53
And if you saw Paul George hit the backboard I think three
18:57
times in that game, it was just a disaster.
19:01
And not surprisingly, the Nuggets ended up not only coming
19:04
back in that series, but they ended up winning four games to
19:11
three in that series and went on to play in the conference finals
19:15
against the Lakers. So Doc Lewis, senior in LA, was
19:23
really nothing home to write about as far as playoff success.
19:28
Now, some credit to him for even turning around that franchise
19:32
out of the day. You know, just weren't
19:34
competitive. But the lack of postseason
19:37
success, particularly not getting to a conference final,
19:43
became kind of the hallmark of his time there.
19:47
Oh, and it also didn't help matters that Ty Lue, who was an
19:53
assistant with him that year before he got the head coaching
19:58
job at the Dockers, was fired, somehow managed to get that team
20:06
to a conference finals in his first year.
20:11
You make it that. What you will, but just the
20:16
thought. So after, you know, things kind
20:22
of quiet down, you know, as far as the entire war was concerned
20:27
after that crazy year. Doc Rivers was bought in by Dale
20:31
Moy in 2021-2022 or really it was 2021 because again, the NBA
20:39
kind of had to do like a condensed season at that point
20:43
because of the circumstances. But regardless, you heard me
20:53
talk about yesterday how throughout that season in
20:57
Philadelphia was arguably their best season of the trusted
21:02
processor with Joanne B and Ben Simmons, Philadelphia finished
21:08
near at the top of the standings in the East.
21:12
All they had to really do after winning the first round matchup
21:16
was to take on the Atlanta Hawks in the seventh game and the
21:21
franchise would have been back in the conference finals for the
21:25
first time since the franchise with doctor Julius Irving and
21:30
most Malone won the NBA championship in 1983.
21:37
So look, like I said from yesterday, I had already
21:39
explained how that game went, so I'm not going to go there.
21:43
But let's go into the next year. So after the whole Ben Simmons
21:50
soccer, he was shipped out, James Harden was bought in, he
21:55
essentially unlocked Jerome B, was propelled in B to not only
22:01
be a scoring champion, but eventual MVP.
22:05
And once again, Philadelphia, just like the Clippers to
22:09
extent, became more competitive and had better record season
22:13
success with Doc Rivers at the helm.
22:17
But none of that would matter because it would only be judged
22:21
based off playoff success. And just like with the Clippers,
22:31
to a large extent, it was pretty much more the same game.
22:36
Summit failures, disappearing performances by Harden and beat,
22:41
you know, either being out of the lineup at times through
22:43
injury or just being erratic. It was pretty much how it went
22:51
there in Philadelphia. Now, I know what you're
22:56
thinking, that at this point, while Doc Rivers had a century
23:02
mostly, you know, with the Clippers, ran his course there.
23:06
But then once he didn't have much playoff success with the
23:10
76ers, that's when I think a lot of people start to raise their
23:16
eye for. See, when the Celtics won the
23:20
20, 2008, I'm sorry, NBA championship, people have to
23:25
remember one thing. Tom Thibodeau was the defensive
23:31
assistant of that team. And believe it or not, a lot
23:35
people actually credit him for winning that championship more
23:40
than they did Doc Rivers. One of the Doc's biggest
23:43
problems really towards the end of his time in Boston and
23:47
subsequently wrote later was that he got out coached in some
23:52
of the more crucial moments of not so much regular season
23:56
games. But even in big playoff games.
23:59
He always got out coached by the opposition who always seemed to
24:04
have step over him. In fact, if you even go back to
24:08
when I mentioned that one series against Houston, how did he
24:13
manage to get out coached by Kel McHale or Mike D'Antoni?
24:18
One of the two was there. And obviously, it seemed like
24:24
Doc Rivers was a coach at that point that you just couldn't
24:27
trust in the playoffs because either he didn't know what he
24:30
was doing or he would make boneheaded coaching decisions
24:34
one after the other that made you look back on this and say
24:43
maybe this guy isn't as good for coach as we initially thought he
24:48
is. And his last coaching stop,
24:54
which subsequently would be the end, was in Milwaukee.
25:01
It worked that situation. I mean, it's pretty much same
25:07
song second, first, you know, just opposed to when he was in
25:14
the Clippers organization and with Philadelphia.
25:18
But I'm not going to get into the way the playoff success
25:25
never really came for Doc in Milwaukee this past season.
25:31
However, it really opened up a lot of people's eyes because
25:36
according to Frederick Miles Turner, who has signed with
25:41
Milwaukee the previous offseason, once the season
25:45
ended, he had gone into detail about how Doc Rivers essentially
25:51
made Jansen or Kupo their franchise superstar legend.
25:57
Essentially up here, as far as he gets preferential treatment
26:04
and all of you, well, maybe with the exception of Bobby Porter's,
26:09
how they were up here, the rest of you all are down here.
26:13
And if that wasn't bad enough, there was even when things
26:17
started to unravel in Milwaukee season at that point, Doc Rivers
26:22
had held a team meeting. Now he called out everybody.
26:27
The only two names that, from what I've read, that didn't get
26:31
acknowledged and chewed out was Giannis and Bobby Portis.
26:38
Yeah, you figure out how that ended up being the case.
26:43
And at first, when Bryan went horse and Sean Solani actually
26:48
said something about it, I couldn't even say I was
26:51
surprised. I thought, well, here's a guy
26:54
that probably was going to be on his way out as far as coaching
26:59
'cause remember he has said this past season was probably going
27:03
to be his last. I would have ended it probably
27:08
in a more ideal way than it did. But regardless, you know, after
27:14
the All Star break or it was even a couple weeks prior to
27:18
that, the team bombed out. They didn't make the play in he
27:24
honest ends up being traded, but not before Doc Rivers officially
27:31
put in his retirement papers signaling the end of his coach
27:36
career. To put it bluntly, as far as Doc
27:44
Rivers is concerned, I will. As I mentioned earlier, I will
27:50
give him credit for, you know, winning a Coach of the Year
27:54
award, especially when he turned Orlando around after some tough
27:58
seasons. And yes, he was an NBA champion
28:02
head coach of Boston, and he did go back to another Finals.
28:07
But it's an outlandish for me to say that he's actually one of
28:11
the most, if not the most overweight head coach in NBA
28:16
history 'cause I mean, think about this for a moment.
28:20
After he left Boston, he never went back as far as to a
28:25
conference final ever again. Every year, as far as playoffs,
28:31
it was first round or second round and he had my two teams
28:37
that were good enough to actually get there at least, if
28:43
not to a NBA Finals, but to at least a conference finals, no
28:47
more or less. The issue that has ultimately
28:53
come up with my thoughts on Doc Rivers is that it was a couple
28:58
years ago Doc Rivers was named one of the 15 greatest head
29:03
coaches in NBA history. I actually would not have put
29:10
them on. Now, I can understand to a
29:14
settlement why that was, but in all honesty, you tell me
29:21
throughout the law of NBA history, tell me any coach
29:28
outside the obvious ones that we know of, but the ones that we
29:32
probably don't give enough recognition, make a case for why
29:36
that coach should be in over Doc Rivers as far as that list was
29:41
concerned. And look, like I said, he got
29:48
ducked into the Hall of Fame Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
29:51
in Springfield, MA earlier this summer.
29:56
And while to a sense, you know, it was the served, and I say
30:01
that in quotes, the bottom line is if you won't win in the
30:06
regular season, Doc Ruiz is your guy.
30:11
If you want to get to the playoffs and maybe have a chance
30:17
to win, you probably wouldn't want Doc Rivers as your coach
30:21
because no coach in NBA history has spoon in your mouth leads.
30:27
And Doc Rivers lost more game sevens and, quite frankly, wore
30:34
out his welcome really in three places to live, three places
30:40
more than he has. So again, his legacy, you know,
30:46
contrary to what some actually believe, it's more complicated
30:49
than just being a Hall of Fame coach.
30:52
Yeah, you may be a Hall of Famer, but you're also
30:58
overrated, Doc, because quite frankly, you got way too much
31:03
credit that times you quite frankly did not.