Getty Head coach Doc Rivers of the Philadelphia 76ers
Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers delivered a pretty harsh statement about the teams he once coached back when he was with the Los Angeles Clippers when explaining why those teams never won a championship.
“I’m not trying to take anything away from that team, but that team was never going to win when you look back at it. We just didn’t get along well enough as a group, and you can’t win without cooperation. That’s the only way you can win,” Rivers said.
Among those who took offense to Rivers’ words was former Sixers’ sharpshooter JJ Redick, who played under Rivers on the Clippers from 2013 to 2017, as Redick quote-tweeted Rivers’ words with the caption, “This is what dreams are made of.”
Redick elaborated further on his thoughts on what Rivers had said while talking with former teammate Jamal Crawford.
“I thought it was weird,” Redick said. “To not get any of that accountability from him, and the interesting part, too, is he’s talking about players getting along, and he was brought in…Doc’s reputation was like as a personality manager…and he was a GM, so like if people weren’t getting along, I don’t know, it’s kind of on (Doc).”
When Rivers was traded from the Boston Celtics to the Clippers in 2013, he was hired as both their head coach and the Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations, though he was relieved of the latter duties in 2017, which coincidentally was the same year both Redick and Crawford left the Clippers.
JJ Redick Explains Why Doc Rivers Words Bother Him
Redick referenced his first two years with the Clippers in explaining why what Rivers said put him off.
“I guess the part that bothers me is like, in ’14 and ’15, we all believed we could win. Doc, the orator, and the motivator, clearly believed we could win. Why randomly, eight years later, are you changing the narrative on that?”
Crawford added to that, referencing that the Clippers beat the Golden State Warriors the year before the Warriors would go on to win a string of titles, as a reason for why everyone believed they could win.
“JJ, we put out the team that just won the championship in the first round, so why would we not believe we can win? The year before that, we put out the team that basically went on a run for a dynasty. Why would we not believe we could win?”
The Clippers beat the Warriors in the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs in seven games.
JJ Redick Disagrees on Clippers’ Lack of Cooperation
Redick disagreed with Rivers assessment that the Clippers’ failures could be attributed to a lack of cooperation, referencing two of their most infamous failures during their run.
“Our Game 5 in Oklahoma City (in 2014), when we were up 11 with four minutes to go. That had nothing to do with cooperation. Our 3-1 meltdown against Houston (in 2015). That had nothing to do with cooperation. Those weren’t the reasons we lost.”
In both series, blowing those leads would prove to be their undoing those postseasons, as the Clippers would lose to the Thunder in six games in 2014, then lose to the Rockets in seven games in 2015.