Looking Back on Doc Rivers Celtics Coaching Career After Hall of Fame Induction

Ranked among top 10 all-time winningest coaches in NBA history.

Won a title, of course, in Boston in 2008, all due to Mbutu.

He has 1,194 coaching wins in stops in Orlando, Boston, Los Angeles, Clippers, Philly, and Milwaukee.

Named one of the top 15 coaches of all time during the NBA's 75th anniversary celebration in 2021, which we all knew was controversial and people had their arguments.

Can't argue about that.

But all that to say, Doc Rivers finally in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

And of course, his big free was with him when he did it.

But Sherrod, I'll ask you, what was your thoughts on him getting it? Not necessarily whether or not he deserved it, because we know he did, but the timing of all of this coming together.

Well, to me, that's the interesting part about this.

I mean, there are people out there who don't believe Doc Rivers should be in the Hall of Fame.

who don't believe that he has put together a body of work because they, I think, often focus on the seasons where he wasn't with a great team and he didn't win a lot of games.

But Doc Rivers, I think people, you know, who've been around as long as Doc has in terms of watching NBA, you go back to that first Orlando team that they had and that team was not very good.

That team found a way to be within fighting chance of, they literally came out to the last game of the season to determine whether they got into the playoffs or not.

The thing about Doc Rivers that I've always been impressed with is just his ability to tap into what you do well.

Doc Rivers has the ability to really get the most out of his players more times than not.

And I'm not talking about in terms of scoring and rebounding and a lot of the tangible things.

I'm simply getting them to be the best version of themselves as a basketball player.

I don't think it's a coincidence that if you look at Paul Pierce's career, his best years came under Doc Rivers' leadership.

Because Paul was a great player before Doc Rivers came on the scene, but he became a Hall of Fame player once Doc got a hold of him.

Kevin Garnett did anything and everything you could possibly imagine in Minnesota, except one thing, win it all.

The closest they got was getting to the conference finals one year.

Doc was able to get Kevin in a situation where he could still be Kevin Garnett and he could still lead a team to a championship.

That was really the only thing that Kevin Garnett really had missing from what we all knew was going to be a Hall of Fame resume.

But Doc Rivers, I've always felt that Doc Rivers deserved to be in a Hall of Fame.

And I was a little bit surprised when I was having those conversations with folks two or three years ago.