Hiring comes out of nowhere
This is a head scratcher. I figure one of three things had to happen to get Doc Rivers to Boston. The Celtics' starstruck owners decided to spend Vin Baker's money on the highest-profile guy out there. Or Danny Ainge told Doc that he, Ainge, is outta here in two years and it's all his after that. Or, Rivers didn't quite have the cachet and leverage that we all thought he might have had. (I'll leave out the possibility that he's lost his marbles.)
I never, not for a nanosecond, gave any thought to Doc Rivers being the next coach of the Celtics. (Shows you what I know.) It made no sense to me in a number of areas and, if you get my drift, it still doesn't. Hadn't he just left a situation where he constantly feuded with his general manager? Why would he take a job here where there's a very public, and very disconcerting paper trail outlining the executive director of basketball operations' decision to ram a player (Ricky Davis) down the throat of his coach? It was almost an article of faith that wherever Rivers surfaced next, it would be in a position where he at least would wield some power. He certainly wanted more in Orlando.
You also had to think Rivers could have done better, could have, to paraphrase Marlon Brando, "gone to a contendah." You had to think that he didn't want to jump back into a situation as quickly as he did, a situation where his worst year in Orlando (41-41 with a revolving-door roster) might be a realistic goal for next year's Celtics and his best year (44-38) would be cause for a parade.
In short, you thought that wherever Rivers landed, he would either (a) be the indisputable honcho or (b) be the head coach on a team going somewhere. You certainly couldn't have envisioned him coming to Boston unless the money was too good to be true (ask Rick Pitino how that worked) or there was a promise of power that he would not have gotten somewhere else. Otherwise, why would he want to coach this team? Didn't he have enough losing in Orlando?
But perhaps I was overrating Rivers, although I certainly wasn't alone in that line of thinking. Did anyone not think he would have his choice of NBA jobs, sort of like the guy in the LendingTree.com ads? He is smart. He is charming. He is extremely likable. He is terrific on television. He always was seen as someone who got the most out of what was an unremarkable group of players in Orlando save one -- Tracy McGrady.
We all figured he might end up in New York until Isiah Thomas surfaced there. Not. There was widespread speculation he would settle into some kind of Gregg Popovichian role in Atlanta. Not. Jim O'Brien already had pounced on the Philly job. What was left that was really appealing? Toronto? Denver? New Orleans? Seattle? Golden State? As late as Monday, Rivers reportedly was weighing another NBA offer, this one for a team that made the playoffs. One of his associates advised him to wait. What if Mark Cuban blows things up in Dallas?
But while Rivers brings undeniable cachet and credibility to the table, he also brings a resume which is, at best, OK. We're not talking Jerry Sloan here who, by the way, would be the absolute perfect guy for this team. But he's taken.
The record shows that Rivers's teams generally struggled to make the playoffs in the East -- and were first-round casualties in three straight years. His eighth-seeded Magic had the No. 1-seeded Pistons down, 3-1, last season, but couldn't put them away. In other words, he has won as many playoff series as John Carroll -- and three fewer than O'Brien.
He is an uptempo acolyte, so that fits with what the boss wants, and his teams always scored a lot of points. But his teams also were uniformly awful on defense -- dreadful is not too strong a word. (Then again, maybe that fits with what the boss wants, too.) Yes, he and the franchise were hamstrung by Grant Hill's injuries. But he also had a player on his team -- McGrady -- who is better than anyone he'll have on this team. He is widely perceived as a players' coach, which may be a bit tricky in Boston, given the current makeup of the team.
The Celtics have some enormous fence mending to do, as evidenced by their pathetic season, their pathetic playoff performance, and their pathetic TV ratings.
Getting Rivers will help enormously as a public face for the franchise. But, at some point, the product on the floor is going to have to do the selling. Let's just hope Rivers has done his due diligence.
