Los Angeles Clippers: How Much Help Is Coach Doc Rivers Getting From GM Doc Rivers?
By Phil Watson
Doc Rivers arrived in Los Angeles in June 2013 with a sterling coaching resume, an NBA championship ring an NBA Coach of the Year award and zero experience as a personnel guy.
He was released from his contract with the Boston Celtics and signed with the Los Angeles Clippers to take on the dual roles of head coach and president of basketball operations.
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To borrow the famous phrase uttered by Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells, Rivers was going to get the opportunity to not only make the meal, but also to shop for the groceries.
Rivers had overcome the whole “no experience” thing very early in his career. After a 13-year career as a player with the Atlanta Hawks, Clippers, New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs from 1983-96, Rivers turned to broadcasting before getting the coaching job with the Orlando Magic.
Rivers was named Coach of the Year in 1999-2000 after going 41-41 with a club that featured Darrell Armstrong and Ron Mercer—acquired during the season—as its two leading scorers.
Fired after a 1-10 start in 2003-04, Rivers landed with the Celtics the following season, eventually engineering the biggest single-season turnaround in NBA history in 2007-08 (66 wins, an improvement of 42 from the previous year) and leading that club led by Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to the NBA title.
He took the C’s back to the NBA Finals in 2010, losing to the Los Angeles Lakers, and left Boston after winning 416 games and 59 postseason contests in nine seasons.
His first Clippers squad was ousted in six games by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the conference semifinals and this year’s club is 40-22 heading into Sunday’s game at Golden State.
Inside The Numbers
Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, is the creator of a formula used to predict expected wins and losses. He developed the formula while working as a researcher at STATS, Inc.
The theory is: points for13.91/points for13.91 + points against13.91, for those who want to try this at home.
John Hollinger, now an executive with the Memphis Grizzlies, used a similar formula while at ESPN, with 16.5 as the exponent.
Why is that relevant?
Because Rivers’ coaching record might not be as good as we think.
Based on expected win-loss records, Rivers’ teams are a cumulative 20 games worse over the course of his career than they should have been based on statistics.
This is one of those “grain of salt” observations, but worth throwing out there in terms of the overall conversation.
The Overall Conversation
Ah, yes … that. How much of a help or hindrance has general manager Doc Rivers been to coach Doc Rivers?
Rivers’ most recent deal is a minor one—the Clippers signed veteran guard Nate Robinson to a 10-day contract on Saturday, per ESPN Los Angeles.
Robinson is a player Rivers is familiar with, having coached him for parts of two seasons with the Celtics.
“I know Nate,” Rivers said. “I’ve coached him. So I have a comfort there.”
Rivers, the personnel man, has been under some fire since mid-January, when he helped engineer a three-team trade between the Clips, the Phoenix Suns and the Celtics that wound up sending second-year guard Reggie Bullock to Phoenix and veteran Chris Douglas-Roberts and a 2017 second-round pick to the Celtics and bringing back Austin Rivers from Boston.
Austin Rivers had never played for the Celtics, having arrived three days prior to his trade to the Clippers as part of a three-team deal that sent Jeff Green from Boston to Memphis.
Yes, Austin Rivers is in fact the son of Doc Rivers and he’s been pretty much a bust after being the 10th overall pick by the then-New Orleans Hornets out of Duke in 2012.
His numbers with L.A. virtually mirror what he did in the Big Easy this season:
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/8/2015.
So it’s appearing as if not even playing for Dad may be able to save the slowly sinking ship that is the NBA career of Austin Rivers.
Doc Rivers’ big deal shortly after arriving in the Southland was to acquire shooting guard J.J. Redick in a sign-and-trade, sending Eric Bledsoe and Caron Butler to Phoenix and a future second-round pick to the Milwaukee Bucks to get Redick from the Bucks and Jared Dudley from the Suns.
He also signed free agents Darren Collison (now with the Sacramento Kings) and Byron Mullens (traded to the Philadelphia 76ers at the 2014 trade deadline).
During the 2013-14 season, he signed Stephen Jackson (who played in nine games), Sasha Vujacic (played in two games), Hedo Turkoglu (38 games), Danny Granger (12 games) and Glen Davis (23 games).
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Last summer, the price of getting rid of Dudley, who played with a knee injury and never meshed well with the Clippers or with Rivers, was a protected 2017 first-round pick to the Bucks for a second-round pick and two players—Carlos Delfino and Miroslav Raduljica—who were waived before they could board a plane to L.A.
He also signed Jordan Farmar to be the backup point guard after Collison signed with Sacramento and he signed sweet-shooting big man Spencer Hawes.
Farmar was waived in mid-January, right after Austin Rivers arrived. The only thing Hawes has been is big—standing 7-feet tall—but he’s been neither sweet-shooting (32.6 percent from 3-point range after hitting 41.6 last season) nor big (6.7 points, four rebounds per game).
Rivers the GM has also left Rivers the coach in the position of needing to get almost 30 minutes a game from 34-year-old Matt Barnes at small forward.
Under the circumstances—fancy statistical formulas be damned—it seems Rivers the coach is doing well to have this team 18 games better than .500 with 20 games to play, considering the mistakes he’s having to deal with on the part of Rivers the GM.