Doc Rivers Surrounded Himself With Players and Coaches From His Time in Boston, and It's Working

Doc Rivers has been head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers since 2013. In that time, he has often surrounded himself (and his CP3 / Blake / DeAndre core) with a collection of players from his days in Boston. As ESPN’s Amin Elhassan points out, those players can be put in three different categories: players, opponents, and children.

This is pretty funny. Especially the part about Austin Rivers. However, now’s not really the time to be laughing at Rivers’ personnel decisions. The Clippers beat the (Kawhi Leonard-less) Spurs last night, 105-86, and have now won 20 out of their last 25 games. They’re pretty firmly set in the 4-seed in the Western Conference behind three of the four most likely teams to win the title this year. That’s not too bad!

Then there is the Clippers coaching staff. I just noticed during last night’s game that Doc’s assistant coaches are all very familiar. Seated next to Rivers on the Clippers bench is former Nets head coach Lawrence Frank, and former Knicks and Hawks head coach Mike Woodson. Also seated nearby is former Washington Wizards assistant coach / former Boston Celtics player Sam Cassell. (Another assistant is Armond Hill who came to LA with Rivers from Boston.)

I’m sure there are similar examples on every team, but with the Clippers, all the connections seem so obvious. And that’s why they’re ripe for parody, no matter how well they’re working.