Doc Rivers has been coaching the Los Angeles Clippers since 2013 after a rare coach trade with the Boston Celtics for a 1st round pick, and was promoted to president of basketball operations in 2014.
The Clippers have had a good amount of success under Rivers but are clearly in a transitional phase after trading Chris Paul last summer, trading Blake Griffin before the trade deadline and now DeAndre Jordan entering unrestricted free agency.
Apparently the Clippers want a little stability and instead of having Rivers be a classic “lame duck” coach entering the final year of his deal in 2018-19, they are reportedly in talks to sign him to a new extension, according to Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times.
Doc Rivers is in for the long haul with the Clippers. ? https://t.co/cKqniXGeSt pic.twitter.com/s8ny0jRfur
— theScore (@theScore) May 5, 2018
Despite all of the drama and roster shuffling that has occurred over the past 12 months, Rivers did one of his best coaching jobs ever this past season, leading the Clippers to a winning season in the western conference despite it all.
While Rivers proved not to be the best front office person and talent evaluator, failing to ever land a starting-caliber small forward or a reliable backup point guard to Chris Paul, and allowing the nepotism of acquiring his son Austin Rivers while giving him a large role to tear about the locker room behind the scenes, he is still a very good, accomplished and experienced head coach and a guy worth keeping around.
The Clippers are entering an interesting summer and it is anyone’s guess what the direction of the team will look like by next October, having a little stability patrolling the sidelines will be a nice asset for the organization.
