After a scorching 4-0 start to the regular season, things quickly fell off of a cliff for the retooled Clippers as an injury ravaged roster struggled through a tougher portion of their schedule and lost nine straight games to fall to 5-11.
While they have climbed out of that hole to an extent by winning three straight games (against the bottom of the barrel in the NBA: Atlanta, Sacramento and the Lakers), the struggles for a team that has been trending downward in recent years even before trading Chris Paul in the off-season has led to a swirl of rumors about the safety of Doc Rivers job as head coach.
He already had the title of general manager stripped from him this past summer, which led some to believe that he may be fired from the organization altogether or at the very least is a sitting duck.
Those rumors have only ramped up with the poor start this season (can you blame him with their roster right now though?). Rivers isn’t too concerned though as he shared with ESPN’s Arash Markazi:
Doc Rivers on his job security: "When you take the job as a coach you’re going to be a target. It’s so easy. Players get hurt, you start losing, it’s the coach’s fault. I’ve been on this rodeo a long time. I know what I can do. I believe in the guys here. It is what it is."
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 29, 2017
"There’s nothing much I can do about it though. That’s the day in time it’s different than it was 15 years ago. Now people want to place blame right away. Blame me, blame whatever. It’s the way it’s going to work. Who cares? That doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t read it anyway."
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 29, 2017
The reality that the organization should realize is that the cards were stacked against them from the start this season with injuries to Patrick Beverley, Milos Tedosic and Danilo Gallinaro and their ability to compete for a playoff spot seems impossible now with Blake Griffin out for two months.
I would say now is the time to blow things up for the Clippers, but that is kind of hard to do when you just signed Blake Griffin to the super-max and Danilo Gallinari to a three-year, $65 million contract. Both are extremely injury prone as evidenced yet again in the 2017-18 season (although Griffin’s was a freak injury) and would be really difficult to move.
The Clippers may as well play out the string this season unless they can recoup some real value in the way of draft picks or young players for DeAndre Jordan and role with Rivers for at least the remainder of his season as he still has one year left after this on his deal.
