Doc Rivers fired as 76ers coach
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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Not shocking at all, probably deserved.
Doc should end up in the BBHOF as a coach -- career .590 record, has a ring, only 2 full seasons where his team finished below .500.
He's 62 at the start of next season and he's coached every year since 1999-2000. He should take a break, maybe permanently. The guy deserves a rest if he chooses. But someone will hire him if he wants to coach.
Doc should end up in the BBHOF as a coach -- career .590 record, has a ring, only 2 full seasons where his team finished below .500.
He's 62 at the start of next season and he's coached every year since 1999-2000. He should take a break, maybe permanently. The guy deserves a rest if he chooses. But someone will hire him if he wants to coach.
On a Simmons pod I recall that Jackie Mac suggested that Doc take a break after the Clippers debacle. He should have taken her advice.
He'll always find work in TV if he wants it.
He'll always find work in TV if he wants it.
Kyle Neubeck (among others) called it.
• Doc Rivers is the easiest fall guy for this disaster, as moving a coach in or out is the most painless way to say that you did something, and I'm not going to sit here and argue that he should escape scot-free from this mess. If I were handicapping it, I'd say he's not long for this town. But the faults of the coach had very little to do with his two leaders choking in an absolutely miserable fashion.
• Doc Rivers is the easiest fall guy for this disaster, as moving a coach in or out is the most painless way to say that you did something, and I'm not going to sit here and argue that he should escape scot-free from this mess. If I were handicapping it, I'd say he's not long for this town. But the faults of the coach had very little to do with his two leaders choking in an absolutely miserable fashion.
Doc is a decent but not elite coach, he'll get canned because it's easy to blame him and you can get someone of the same level like Bud for just cash. Someone will hire him if he wants to coach next year.
Definitely seems like Doc and Harden couldn't both be on the Sixers next year. As others have mentioned, Doc is much easier to replace.
If Philly had literally done nothing the instant that they drafted Embiid they'd be better off than they are today. Yet they keep on making big move after big move.
What's the old saying? Don't throw good money at bad money?
What's the old saying? Don't throw good money at bad money?
It's really been shocking. Can't blame them for Simmons over Jaylen (or Ingram), but Fultz over Tatum, Zhaire Smith over Bridges, Harris/Horford over Butler, Okafor over anyone else. PJ Tucker was a nice pickup, and Maxey looks like a great pick at #21. That's it, in almost 9 years.
Absolutely. Star players know he's a players coach. I can see a lot of chair shuffling at the top of the open job pyramid.
Why? He signed a 5/$40m. Got paid for 3 years and likely a chunk of the final 2 years.
So, maybe:
Nurse to Philly
Bud to Toronto
Monty to Milwaukee
Doc to Phoenix
Just keep the carousel spinning.
Nurse to Philly
Bud to Toronto
Monty to Milwaukee
Doc to Phoenix
Just keep the carousel spinning.
Seriously this isn't far from what I'm thinking. Veteran teams aren't hiring any up and coming assistants so the group behind these 4 are who.....Mark Jackson, Redick w/zero bench experience, D'Antoni, etc?
Simmons and Fultz are both more than defensible, both were very close to consensus #1 prospects (Tatum was actually 4th behind Ball and Jackson on the consensus average) addressed in the other thread, but the Bridges trade was totally defensible, 10 for 16 and a future 1st (and Bridges really wasn't some star until very recently, just a solid role player). Okafor was a sneaky terrible pick. Even the Butler thing, it was a poor call, but.... it looks worse in retrospect because Simmons flamed out and MIA built around Butler's inability to shoot 3s. Philly was right that Simmons/Embiid/Butler probably doesn't work at all on offense, but the moves they made based on that were dumb, and Simmons turned out not to be the foundational piece.
I think Doc is a bit of an odd man out here at this point. His best move would be, like, in the Mike Brown role on a team that is on the cusp of being an annual contender and needs to solidify that status for a few consecutive years. If you are a team with real championship aspirations, at this point you would probably look at Doc's track record and think of him as a step backwards.
I liked him as a commentator, provided insightful analysis etc. But the pitch/tone of his natural voice, made him difficult to hear on broadcasts. But that was a number of years back, maybe they can adjust his voice better now in the mix etc.
Most of it was defensible (other giving Harris that contract and drafting Okafor), it's just astonishing how it almost all ended up being wrong.
Yeah it's a combination of:
1. Bad luck
2. Correctly identifying problems, but then making weird decisions on solutions
3. Failure to develop players
4. Absolutely no patience at key points.
And imagine if Embiid never actually got on the court. There's an alternate universe where he never plays an NBA game.
I was actually thinking Doc to Milwaukee. He did go to Marquette, and it's a much healthier organization than Philly; less BS to navigate. I admittedly haven't followed the Bucks' coaching outlook very closely, so I don't have a great sense of what they're supposedly looking for in their new guy.
He would break Embiid
I’m sure if it
If Doc replaces Jackson at ABC/ESPN it will already be a great offseason
This^^^^
Nobody is mentioning this but you sweep the first round and get to a G7 as a roughly 3-1 series underdog. I'd agree if it was Embiid who had gotten up there and given Giannis' failure speech instead of him.
I had the same thought. If you are in "win now" mode, I'm not sure you're going to do better than Doc unless you think Nick Nurse just needs a change of scenery to get his mojo back.
Would you say Doc is a better coach that Joe M.?
I can't say that I could really tell one way or the other, but I do like the culture the C's have built far more than Philly 's.
I have no idea, but I know that BOS has way more talent than PHI and that a lot of Joe M.'s job is to basically get out of the way and let them perform. Other teams in these playoffs have had to make radical adjustments, playing guys like Lonnie Walker IV or whatever, and BOS' big adjustment was just going back to their old starting lineup (not a criticism, just saying not a difficult move to figure out). I would say that from what I saw, Rivers outperformed Mazzulla in that series overall.
Yeah, I think it's just like... how the lost, more than the fact that they lost. If the Celtics won in a convincing six games, with a few gutty 76ers wins and a few more close games, I don't think the outcry would be nearly the same. Rivers still probably would have got canned... but, to be up 3-2 going home and then frittering it away in game six and then shitting all over yourself for half of game seven.... it's just a terrible look.
I don't have anything against Rivers personally, but I wouldn't be surprised if he has a tougher time finding work. That championship on his resume was 15 years ago and had a team with 3 hall of famers. Since then he has taken veteran, championship-aspiring squads and underachieved in the playoffs each time. He wants a ready-made, championship contender so he won't even consider Detroit or Toronto. I wouldn't mind him taking some time off and doing TV. Plus, he could take a break and wait for an opportunity more to his liking.
Yeah, I'm not a huge Doc guy but this playoffs wasn't really the way to make the case he needed to go. I would say he's neither the problem nor the solution, though - so I get why they are moving on.
The best case for Doc getting fired is if the Philly stars want a different voice in the locker room. Keep the stars happy.
Now is as good a time as any with so much experienced coaching talent available.
Now is as good a time as any with so much experienced coaching talent available.
I feel like this 3-2 collapse is only a small piece of the "why did Rivers get fired" pie...in addition you've got 1. a track record of lack of playoff finish - I think I heard on one pod his teams are now 16-33 in potential close-out games 2. He hasn't lead the sixers past the 2nd round in 3 tries (not a huge sample) but also 3. none of his teams have made it out of the 2nd round since the 12/13 Celtics team 4. he has yet to be able to get the best out of Embiid in the playoffs, and given Embiid's health concerns his peak may not last much longer. Now, I cant pretend that another coach will definitely unleash MVP level Embiid in the playoffs, but feels like you have to try?
I dont gamble so I can't come close to answering this, but how do you think those numbers would look if you went from 2011 on? The 08/09/10 postseasons he went a combined 38-26 (obviously thats straight record, not moneyline)
i forget which podcast it was, but they were talking about how they'd like to see the next PHI coach use Embiid like Jokic, run him off screens, use a lot more motion.... as if the guy who plays in one of the slowest offenses in the league, and already is sucking wind and being lazy in 4th quarters is gonna be able to handle significantly more running
that was the point, they seemed to think that putting Embiid in motion would be good... he doesn't have the conditioning for that, nor the quick decision-making/passing. Jokic can play like a wing and be really effective, Embiid would probably be worse... nothing wrong with how Doc uses Embiid on offense, it's built to his strengths and to keep him from getting gassed.
Honestly it would probably look better since he was the favorite in the majority of those games. Iirc, he went 7 games in many series those years as favorites. Since then he has won as an underdog as a relatively astronomical rate. For example, winning 2 of 4 in Boston as a significant underdog.