An Objective Evaluation Of Doc Rivers
An Objective Evaluation Of Doc Rivers
Here in this piece, I’ll try to do the impossible task of objectively evaluating an NBA head coach, examining what Rivers has and has not done right in his first year-plus on the job.
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Perhaps this is the case for the vast majority of professional sports coaches, but throughout the first 13 months of Doc Rivers’ Sixers tenure, the general attitude of fans towards him has fluctuated wildly. His approval was sky high when first hired -- I praised the hire myself -- and it remained high as the Sixers got off to a hot start to the 2020-21 season.
But as the season wore on, the number of critics began to grow. Whether it was his constant, sanctimonious defenses of Ben Simmons, or his failure to adjust late in games, many fans soured on Rivers by the end of the year, and that sentiment has largely lingered on into this year.
Here in this piece, I’ll try to do the impossible task of objectively evaluating an NBA head coach, examining what Rivers has and has not done right in his first year-plus on the job.
Let’s start by examining what Rivers was supposed to bring to the table, and whether or not he has done that. First and foremost, Rivers was sold as a coach who would bring accountability behind the scenes. By the end of the Brett Brown era, consensus took shape that there was a lack of accountability in the locker room, and it led to Simmons and Joel Embiid stagnating as players -- Simmons never showed improvement on the offensive end, and Embiid was constantly in sub-optimal shape. Rivers was supposed to be the tough love type of coach who would get through to the two young stars and get them to take the next steps.
In this area, I would argue that Rivers has failed. Simmons not only remained stagnant in terms of skill development, but also found himself struggling mentally during the playoffs to the point that he was rendered ineffective on the offensive end. While Simmons’ issues on that front can only be blamed on Simmons, it also remains true that Rivers was unable to get through to Simmons and help him out of his funk in any major way. For a coach who has been billed as an elite motivator and communicator, that’s an area where one would’ve hoped he’d help.
In general, Rivers’ vociferous defenses of Simmons were not exactly the type of tough love/accountability that many hoped he’d bring. Many fans viewed Brown as unable or unwilling to deliver Simmons the type of discipline that they’d like to see doled out, and hoped that Rivers would take the opposite approach. Instead, Rivers opted for a nonstop, 24/7 lovefest for Simmons’ game, and while it’s not clear that the disciplinarian approach would’ve worked, the increased praise most certainly did not.
On the Embiid front, it is true that the big fella had the best season of his career under Rivers, but it never seemed as if the cause of that was Rivers’ interpersonal skills. Embiid seemed to reinvent his health and fitness habits in the 2020 offseason, signifying a growth in maturity that he has at times attributed to the birth of his son. While Rivers deserves some credit for Embiid’s MVP-caliber season on a tactical level, I can’t give him too much credit for Embiid’s offseason reinvention.
Perhaps, though, expecting Rivers to transform Simmons and Embiid as human beings was asking too much. NBA coaches don’t have to be life coaches. And outside of Rivers not transforming Simmons and Embiid, I struggle to find any major area where he has failed to live up to expectations -- or at least to his previous track record.
The one area where Rivers has been reliably excellent throughout his coaching career is getting the most out of individual players, even if those players are already seemingly in their prime. He instills a massive amount of confidence in his players, and gets things out of them that other coaches, for whatever reason, could not. On this current team alone, we’ve seen Embiid, Tobias Harris, Seth Curry, and (perhaps) Georges Niang all take leaps mid-career. Seeing all of those players undergo clear improvements under Rivers is not a coincidence.
If we’re being charitable, we could also give Rivers credit for the development of young players under his tutelage. Tyrese Maxey and Furkan Korkmaz have both shown improvement under Rivers, and Matisse Thybulle and Isaiah Joe are inching along, as well. Charles Bassey’s emergence might add another name to that list.
From a tactical standpoint, Rivers has made some clear improvements over the previous regime. From the 2019-20 team to the 2020-21 team, Rivers took a squad that was arguably worse in terms of defensive personnel and catapulted them from seventh to first in the league in defense. So far this year, he has his team ranking third in the league in offense, which is almost unfathomable given their number of absences. He has assembled an excellent coaching staff with a wide array of skill sets, and he delegates in the right areas -- for example, letting Dan Burke be the de facto defensive coordinator feels like a wise decision.
Rivers has his issues adjusting late in games, as well as in the playoffs. Letting Danny Green guard Trae Young in Game 1 of the Hawks series was a criminally bad decision. Not bringing Maxey into the rotation early enough in that series was poor judgment. Letting Young hide as easily as he did on defense was also a mistake.
Rivers simply has never acquitted himself well in the tactical battles of the playoffs. In his career, he has blown three 3-1 leads and has lost Game 7 at home five times. His stubbornness and, at times, lack of imagination has been his constant undoing, and if not for the Simmons implosion, that storyline would’ve taken center stage in the aftermath of the Hawks series.
Such is the complexity of Rivers’ skill set as a coach. He’s great at making broad scale tactical decisions that put his players in positions to succeed, but not great at the microscopic adjustments that can swing the tides of playoff series. He’s a very good motivator and a charismatic person, but failed to get through to the player who could’ve most used his help. The results on paper show a coach who is clearly well above average, but his shortcomings are truly maddening.
I’m not sure where the fan consensus towards Rivers will go from here. It will be difficult for him to fully live down his defenses of Simmons as long as he coaches here -- he not only failed to get through to Simmons, but did so in the most embarrassing way possible. He was/is repeatedly sanctimonious and condescending with his statements on Simmons, and simply lost touch with reality. But the “what is Doc good at” discussion goes a bit far in my opinion. Rivers gets the most out of his players, he employs the right systems on both sides of the floor, and he’s a likable person who players seem to like playing for. The Simmons fiasco notwithstanding, Rivers has done a good enough job for my liking during his short time in Philly.