Doc Rivers says Hall of Fame speech is not about him
Doc Rivers said he learned while writing his speech for Saturday's induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame that the words he plans to say will not be about himself but about everyone who helped him get there. "You go through this journey of writing it, and you realize it has nothing to do with you in a very good way," Rivers said. "People are happy for you, and I am happy for them because they got me there. ...
Rivers won 1,194 regular-season games as an NBA coach, ranking sixth in league history behind Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley, all Hall of Famers. He said his retirement from coaching is real.
Rivers won NBA Coach of the Year in his first season, leading Orlando to a 41-41 record after using a preseason ranking of the NBA's top 300 players, none of whom played for Orlando, as motivation. Critics have noted his coached teams lost 10 Game 7s, the most in NBA history, while his 114 playoff wins rank fourth all time.
Rivers said the 2008 Celtics championship, won alongside Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, was an obvious high point of his career, and the trio will present him for his Hall of Fame enshrinement. He also pointed to promises kept to players such as Tyronn Lue, who played 11 games for Rivers in Orlando during the 2003-04 season and later succeeded him as Clippers coach after Rivers told him to call if he ever wanted a coaching job.