Doc Rivers, byname of Glenn Anton Rivers, (born October 13, 1961, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.), American professional basketball player and coach who, as head coach of the Boston Celtics, led the team to a National Basketball Association (NBA) championship in 2008.
Rivers first emerged on the basketball scene as a star at Proviso East High School within the Chicago suburb of Maywood, Illinois, the place he appeared destined to turn out to be the fourth member of his prolonged household to turn out to be a profitable skilled athlete: Jim Brewer, his uncle, and a cousin, Byron Irvin, each performed within the NBA, and one other cousin, Ken Singleton, was a Major League Baseball participant. Rivers went on to play at Marquette University, whose then assistant coach Rick Majerus nicknamed him “Doc” as a result of Rivers had worn a “Dr. J” T-shirt (in honour of NBA star Julius Erving) at a summer season basketball camp.
While attending Marquette, Rivers helped the U.S. group seize a silver medal on the 1982 Fédération Internationale de Basketball Association world championships. After three seasons at Marquette (over which he averaged 13.9 factors and 4.6 assists), he entered the NBA draft and was a second-round selection of the Atlanta Hawks in 1983 (he accomplished his diploma in political science in 1985). He performed 13 seasons, the primary 8 with the Hawks, remaining their all-time chief in assists with 3,866. Rivers went on to play 864 regular-season video games within the NBA, together with stops with the Los Angeles Clippers (1991–92), the New York Knicks (1992–94), and the San Antonio Spurs (1994–96). He retired after the 1995–96 season with profession averages of 10.9 factors, 5.7 assists, and three rebounds.
Rivers grew to become a head coach for the primary time in 1999–2000, taking an Orlando Magic group that was projected to complete close to the underside of its division to a 41–41 document and changing into NBA Coach of the Year. Fired after a 1–10 begin in 2003–04, he labored as a TV analyst earlier than resuming teaching with the Celtics in 2004–05.
In 2006–07, Rivers’s third season because the Celtics’ head coach, Boston had a 24–58 document, and critics have been calling for Rivers’s job. With blockbuster trades by which the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett from the Minnesota Timberwolves and Ray Allen from the Seattle SuperSonics, Rivers engineered the best turnaround in league historical past, guiding the Celtics on a dramatic journey to a 66–16 season that culminated in defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 4–2 within the best-of-seven finals. The championship was the franchise’s document seventeenth—and its first since 1985–86. The Celtics continued to subject the most effective groups within the NBA by the tip of the last decade and into the 2010s, because the group certified for the playoffs in every of the 5 seasons following its championship run, together with a return to the NBA finals in 2009–10 (a loss in a rematch towards the Lakers) and a loss within the convention finals to the eventual-champion Miami Heat in 2011–12.
The Celtics have been seeking to flip over an ageing roster following the 2012–13 season, however Rivers didn't want to take part in a rebuilding undertaking, so Boston made an uncommon cope with the Los Angeles Clippers that noticed the Celtics launch Rivers from his contract in trade for a first-round draft decide from the Clippers. Rivers then signed a three-year contract to turn out to be the Clippers’ head coach and vice chairman of basketball operations. His first season with the group was tumultuous, as he guided the Clippers to a division title and franchise document for victories (57) however needed to coach by a scandal involving racist feedback made by Clippers proprietor Donald Sterling that broke through the opening spherical of the playoffs. The group however superior to the convention semifinals, the place it couldn't upset the higher-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder in an in depth six-game collection that featured dramatic last-minute comebacks by each groups.
Rivers guided the Clippers to a tie for the second greatest document within the Western Conference in 2014–15, however he was hit with criticism for constructing a skinny roster, because the Clippers performed its beginning 5 gamers greater than some other group within the NBA that season, a state of affairs that doubtless contributed to the group’s blowing a three-games-to-one collection result in the Houston Rockets within the second spherical of the playoffs. The Clippers had one other season of at the least 50 wins in 2015–16, however the group misplaced its opening postseason collection after its two greatest gamers, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, each sustained season-ending accidents within the Clippers’ fourth playoff sport. The group once more misplaced within the first spherical of the postseason the next 12 months, which marked the NBA-record fifth straight time that the Clippers blew a lead in a playoff collection that they ultimately misplaced. In August 2017 Rivers was stripped of his front-office position however was retained because the Clippers’ head coach. Paul and Griffin quickly left the group, and the Clippers started a rebuilding effort. Despite Los Angeles having a roster full of profession position gamers and no stars, the group returned to the playoffs in 2018–19 (a first-round loss to the defending champion Golden State Warriors) behind one of many biggest teaching achievements of Rivers’s profession.