This is Rodney. All right, we continue of Fred Rogan, Rodney Peak
and five seventy l A Sports saltier, Adam Auslin, what is this hour?
And Adam, of course the whole stuff, the Clipper Countdown, the
halftime show, the postgame show, the Clipper countdown, not Clipper Countdown,
the Clipper County. There's only on the Ohio State Buckeyes, right, the
Clipper stock putting some respect on that name today. And I did have a
lot of fans calling about Doc Rivers at the end of the series against the
Denver Nuggets. All right, leave that you were Were you surprised by this?
I was surprised a little bit with the timing and also because and I'll
read it to you, but Chris Haynes, one of the best reporters out
there who actually had the story on Kawhi Leonard going to the Clippers before Adrian
Wardzarroowski, he said, quote, Rivers will be running it back next season,
sources set, So we took that to the bank. It's him at
shams its woes. Those are the three best reporters, so things could have
changed. Conversations were had apparently in earlier today. Jovan Buja of the athletic
who is a friend of mine who has come on Clippers talk for the last
couple of seasons. He reported that there were philosophical differences between the Clippers and
the organization and what Doc Rivers wanted to do moving forward with certain players,
and there were rotational issues, and these are some of the things we've talked
about all season long with this team and a Visa Zubats is someone who has
the potential to be a future defensive Player of the Year in this league.
He's that good. He's only twenty three years of age right now. He's
getting better and better. He was the second best rim protector in the league
this year, right behind Brook Lopez, and he was a plus seventeen on
the court in the playoffs, but he wasn't playing a lot, or he
wasn't playing as much as he could have been. And Montrese Harrold, who
was a minus eleven when he was on the court in the playoffs, through
no fault of his own, he had not played organized basketball in five months.
Monster Tress because of the hiatus because of the pandemic, and then because
he had a death in the family. When he returned the playoffs, started,
and it's hard to implement a guy back into the rotation and think he's
gonna have any form or any rhythm out there, and he really didn't.
And he was a minus twenty seven and seventy two minutes against Nikolajokis when he
was out there on the floor. When Denver made their big runs, Monster
Tres was out there. And so I think one of Doc's biggest strengths is
being that player's coach, is having that trust with his players that you're not
going to be looking over your shoulder too much, that he's going to let
you fail at times. But I think it also turned out to be his
weakness in the playoffs because he had a blind spot for Montres. Harold granted
Trez six Man of the Year award winner was a runner up or was third
in voting last year, and that's because of the great coaching from Doc Rivers
and how he developed him. So that was his guy, and I think,
so to speak, as the expression goes, he kind of died on
that hill. He kept going back and back or back to Monste Trez,
and some of the times didn't work out, obviously, because the Denver Nuggets
made their big runs, when they were down nineteen, when they were down
sixteen, when they were down twelve, when Trez was on the floor.
And I do want to say Doc Rivers is a great coach. He's a
great man, and he helped establish a winning culture with the Clippers, and
he brought credibility to the franchise, legitimacy, relevancy, respectability, and he's
always going to be a part of the foundation when they do eventually win a
championship, just like Blake Griffin was, just like CP three was, because
he helped them turn the corner and become a winning organization. Think about this,
They've only made the playoffs thirteen times in the history of the franchise.
The Clippers have only made it thirteen times in fifty years. Six of those
times Doc Rivers was the coach when they made the playoffs. He just simply
could not get over the hump. Now, the last two years I thought
were his best coaching jobs, but those were with teams who had lower expectations,
teams that overachieved. He was great at that with the Clippers, but
teams that were supposed to be contenders, that were the front runners. And
we knew the stats in the odds of them winning the championship. Coming into
this year, they were the front runner. Those teams came up short and
blowing a three one lead the way they did too, where you're up by
double digit leads in the last three games, it was somewhat inexcusable and inexplicable.
It was hard to understand and hard to rationalize, because, look,
I do think Doc Verse is a top five coach in this league, but
that doesn't mean he's a top five club coach for this Clippers roster the way
it's constructed now, and he wasn't able to maximize the talent in the biggest
moments in the playoffs, he wasn't able to adjust. I know that was
a lot Rodney. You know, I've been because a lot of it.
Most of it, No, most of it. I agree with you.
I just I just and I said this earlier. I just think in this
situation, in the bubble this year, coming off of a year, like
you mentioned that he coached his probably his best year of coaching, I just
think there's so many circumstances and to pull the trigger after a bubble season,
after a season we've never no one's ever been through before, yes, the
expectations were high. I just think it was I would like to have seen
him get one more year and one more crack at it that I guess that
that is the big takeaway that I'm getting from this, because you do you
have back to back six men of the Year that had to leave the bubble
that you have counted on, you counted on for for the last year,
last two years, and you expect him at some point to get it going.
You gotta and I and I know this from a coach's mindset too,
that sometimes you believe, Okay, I gotta get him back to minutes so
I can get him going, so he can get back to form, whether
it be Lou Williams, whether it be Montres Harold, and it just didn't
happen. But he can't actually he can't play defense. I mean, the
joker put that on everybody's to be honest, Well, let's be honest,
he put it on everybody. The difference with the Lakers, though, when
when Denver has made those runs and come back, the Lakers as a team,
as individuals, as players said Okay, we're gonna I'm gonna take this
game over. Lebron James I'm gonna take this game over. Anthony Davis,
Well, we're gonna do it. Rondo at the defensive end. I didn't
see that from the Clipper players. And we can talk Jamal Murray, are
we gonna? I mean, nothing's wrong with with Kawhi and Paul George.
Jamal Murray went off too. It's not just put it all on Zubots and
Montres Harold and Zubats plays. No, Jamal Murray went off too. I'm
just saying in the and and and then also Paul George with the mental issue
early on. I I just again, I would like to have seen him
get a full crack at this particular roster, because, yes, the Chris
Paul Blake Griffins were a team with a lot of expectations that underachieved, but
they still had to go through the Warriors and a lot of those cases to
get there to win it, and who knows if they would even got to
the Western Conference finals and won it and get to the finals. But this
team obviously was head and shoulders predicted to go and win it all and most
experts had him winning at all and they fell way way short, and in
the way they did, It's certainly a factor, but just give the man
one more shot at a full season to get it done with new players and
Rod, yeah, I completely understand that because there were difficult circumstances that were
obviously outside of docks control. But you mentioned yo Kich is giving it to
everyone he is, but you try to contain him the best you can.
And some of the rotations with Tres being out there, when Yokich is shooting
sixty five percent against him when he's on the floor versus forty eight percent against
the Viza Zubots when he's out there on the floor, that's hard to understand.
And this is something we've talked about all season long. I've gotten phone
calls on this since the first week of the season. Why is a Visa
zu Bots not playing more? Reporters know this, People in the know have
always questioned this particular decision by Doc Rivers to go with Montrese Harrold over a
Visa Zubots, even though all the numbers, all the analytics, and the
eye test tells you that Zubots is the better player in most situations and he
wasn't closing out games. And so if we all know that, you can
be damn sure. Steve Balmer in the front office they know that too.
And if that report from Joban Buja is accurate, and I have no reason
to doubt it, And if his sources are correct, and that was a
schism or a divide between the front office and Doc Rivers and Steve Balmer,
then I can understand how you move on because if Doc's going to be adamant
that he's going to be playing Montrese Harold more going for it still, then
you could run into the exact same problems again. So some of these things,
Yes, a coach takes the fall for things that are outside their purview,
outside of their control, because it's always easier to switch out a head
coach than having a complete roster turnover, especially with some of the salaries they
have with the Clippers roster. But Doc Rivers was accountable. After Game seven,
he said, you can point the finger at me. He owned a
lot of this. And again, I love Doc Rivers, I hate talking
about this stuff and I feel bad for him because not only is he a
great coach, he's a great man. But this was a situation where they
didn't get close to maximizing their talent on the court and getting to those expectations
that were lofty, but we're warranted. This is different than blowing a three
one lead with Lob City. You have Kawhi Leonard on this team, and
you couldn't close out games where you were up nineteen, up sixteen, up
twelve, over and over again, the same thing seemed to keep happening.
Are their locker room issues? I don't know. There's murmurs of that.
So it was a season that was difficult to manage across the board. But
I think there are some good coaching candidates out there that may be better equipped
for a situation like this than Doc Rivers, and I think that's where the
team's moving forward with. All Right, well, let's talk about those candidates.
Tylu name mentioned right off the top. He's been sitting next to Doc,
he was his assistant in Boston. He's won a title. Jeff Van
Gundy was mentioned as well. Are those the only two candidates? Well,
according to Adrian will Drowski, they are front runners. I wouldn't say they're
the only two candidates, but I do think they're good ones, especially Tyron
Lou. Not only has he been an assistant coach with Doc, Rivers.
Doc has been his mentor, but he's been in a situation where he was
promoted from within midway through a season back in January of twenty sixteen where David
Blatt was let go with the Cleveland Cavaliers and he got them over the top.
Now you can say Lebron James James is the main reason for that,
fine, but that's a little bit disrespectful to Tyron Lou. Look at how
many clips there are online of he and Lebron James getting into arguments on the
bench, and you can only do that if you have Lebron's respect. The
best player over the last twenty five years, maybe the best player ever,
he had his respect and apparently he originally wanted Tyron Lou to be the head
coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. So he is someone that demands respect in
the locker room. You have to have that. And he won a championship
and Jeff Van Gundi, while he hasn't been a head coach in thirteen years,
it's kind of like John Gruden coming out of the booth and returning to
the court, and he did very good things with the New York Knicks,
obviously, where they were an eight seed and they got to the NBA Finals
back in nineteen ninety nine. And I do wonder about analytically, where is
he leaning there. He's more old school, but he's a disciplinarian. And
if that's what they need in this locker room right now to get everybody pointing
in the same direction, that could be vital. I also think stan Band
Gundy's name could be out there at some point. He obviously got through Orlando
Magic to an NBA finals, and he did so using a lot of analytics.
They played four out and then had Dwight Howard in the paint. And
you could say that if pat Riley does not boot him out from being courtside
as the head coach with those Miami Heat teams in two thousand and six,
they started eleven and ten after winning fifty nine games a year before that.
Understand Band Gundy pat Riley comes down, they end up winning the championship.
I'm not so sure that stan Van Gundy wasn't able to win that championship if
he was still the head coach. Oh yeah, they win it, right,
I mean they went seven. They win it. They only lost the
year before to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals in a seven game
series and it wins seven games. So I think he's a championship level type
head coach, and Doc Rivers was that too, But was he the right
coach for this team? I mentioned he helped establish a winning culture with the
Clippers, but Steve Baumber, he's here to establish a championship at that though.
Okay, before before the pandemic hit, right, Yeah, what were
we saying about the Clippers even though they lost in the Lakers? What were
we saying about them? That they were hitting their stride? They were peaking
at the right time as much as we were saying that about the Lakers,
even though you know, when they beat Milwaukee and they beat the Clippers.
But we were saying the Clippers because they were on some sort of winning straight
I forget what it was, but they were starting to play well and starting
to be that dangerous team. And then a four month break. Yeah,
they won seven of their last eight games. That one loss came to Los
Angeles Lakers. But they were so consistently inconsistent, and that's not a huge
sample size. Still, and they had times in the seating games where the
Phoenix Suns beat him with that game winner, And I know they went undefeated
and still didn't make the playoff, but all year long they could not maintain
any level of consistency. And I think some of that eventually has to be
on Doc Rivers. How much do you think how much do you think that
because we obviously compare the Lakers and Clippers all the time. The fact that
you've got a vocal, very outspoken leader in Lebron in the Laker locker room,
and Kawhi is not that guy. And I don't know if Paul George
can be that guy. Yeah, there are different ways to lead, but
it sure worked for the Toronto Raptors last year. I mean, obviously Kyle
Lowry, though Kyle Lowry is he's really the leader and vocal leader on that
team. Kyle Lowry was also somebody that struggled mightily in the playoffs before Kawhi
lea. He did not shy away from being the vocal leaders. What I'm
saying, sure, and who is that for the Clippers at this point?
Maybe you could say it's Patrick Beverley with the way he leads on and off
the court. You're right, there's something to that, But Obviously, Doc
rivers leadership and his message, it wasn't translating. And I don't know what
happened at the end of that game seven, because there were reports that guys
were asking to come out of the game because they weren't well conditioned enough because
they were gassed. That's unbelievable. And everything that happened to lead up to
that moment was also just so devastating to see the same disappointment happened that happened
in twenty fifteen to a team this good, to a team that has a
championship level player in Kawhi Leonard on it and a lot of the time that
falls on the head coach. This isn't unprecedented. And again, Doc Rivers
is one of the all time great coaches in NBA history. He's eleventh on
the all time coaching wins list, and he's gonna go down right now.
He is the best coach for the Clippers, the most successful. And I
look, I get it. I've been around sports a long time since.
Coaches come and go get fired. Dad was a coach, my brother's a
coach, been fired and hired several times. I get it, and it's
I'm always fair. But my thing is I look at it and go because
I do believe this is a Clipper team, if they're able to keep it
together, a team that will win multiple championships. I really do. And
Fred and I have talked about this about the Lakers, that this was or
is Lebron's best chance to win it, and he's put together a season that
hopefully it ends in it in a championship because we don't know if he can
duplicate what he's done this year, Whereas the Clippers are younger, especially their
stars are younger, and they have an opportunity to win multiple ones. That
being said, I look at it like, you know, Mark Jackson getting
fired from Golden State and Steve Kerr taking over and winning championships. I'm saying
that Mark Jackson, you can't tell me that he wouldn't have won championships with
Golden State. And I'd hate to see Doc leave and they go win a
championship next year or the year after. And Doc was fired during a pandemic
and a level in a situation where mentally physically guys are not the same.
But I can make the argument that the main reason they lost that series up
three one was because of some of the roster moves by Doc Rivers. Everybody
else recognized that Monstitrez the game didn't match the name at that point. He
didn't look right, he wasn't himself, and every bone lead started with him
being on the court, and it's been an issue going back from the beginning
of the season. So I don't think this was just a reactionary decision just
because of what happened when they were up three one. It could go back
to twenty fifteen two. It's all body of work with Doc Rivers. He's
been there for seven seasons and they hadn't been able to get through and break
through that barrier of getting to the Western Conference finals. And I don't think
that's the Clippers goal anyways. Like you said, this is a team built
that can win multiple championships. I mean, that's what Steve Balmer is here
to do when Doc Rivers unfortunately fell short of. And I think Steve Balmer
has done a great job in refining each point of this organization where the front
office is at a championship level, and he's at a championship level himself because
he'll do anything to win right now, and they have to find that head
coach that's going to get this roster and maximize the talent on the floor.
And there were some flaws in Doc Rivers and his strategy. I think that
really hurt them come playoff time. And it goes back to Reggie Jackson in
the series before that. I'm not sure why he was on the court in
Game four for defensive purposes. Why was he even out there? Why wasn't
Terrence Man out there? I don't understand that. Why wasn't Roddy McGruder,
who never played a minute in the playoffs, why wasn't he out there?
So it wasn't just one isolated issue. I think this goes back. I
think it's bigger than that. And again I love Doc Rivers and Clipper Nation
has to be grateful for what he did for the organization. Well, a
final thought on this, Adam, I think Balmber pulled the trigger here not
just because of the coming up short, but I think also because of the
Lakers success. I mean, this is devastating. This is the Clippers finally
had started to assume some very small toll hold and legitimacy in the marketplace and
acknowledgement of the marketplace and in a year where they were expected to, if
not win, it be right there to go out like that, while the
Lakers can turn around and win the title. I think it sets the Clippers
back years and what they were trying to do. And I think that's another
reason Bomber did it. I'll bet you if the Lakers had not had the
success they've had this year, Doc would still be the coach. Well,
we'll never know about that, but I'm not sure it sets them back years
if they go on to win the championship next year, which is entirely possible.
And look the Lakers the way they took out the Denver Nuggets in five
games. They were able to get Nikola Yokis in foul trouble. They had
the right strategy, they had the right plan, and maybe that plays a
factor in all this, and it puts more pressure on you to have to
win. But I told you after they lost that this was the most disappointing
season in the history of the Clippers franchise. After being the most successful offseason,
it turned out to be the most disappointing season because they did not reach
the expectations, which are championship or bust. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
By the way, they can opt out after next year. So the pressure
is on. Whoever is hired is going to know that this is a high
pressure situation where you have to win a championship, and that's what you want
as a fan. You want your team going for it every year, especially
when they have this level of talent, and that's what Steve Balmer is going
to bring the Clippers. Yeah, it's gonna be a Kawhi friendly coach for
sure. What about the rumors that Phil Jackson's been thrown out there? Adam
Oh, come on, is he gonna zoom in? Look, he's the
greatest modern coach in the history of the end. He got a ready made
championship ready to go. Come on. I don't know if he's the guy
the Lakers might have already got him back if he had any inkling to coach
again, or if he had that itch. I don't think that's a situation,
but you never know. With this Clippers front office. We didn't see
this coming, just like we didn't see the Blake trade coming, just like
we didn't see the Tobias Harris trade coming. Just like all the reports were
saying Kawhi Leonard was going to end up with the Lakers, and then that
Clippers front office that works in stealth landed him and Paul George something no one
else saw coming. All right, Adam, appreciate you hanging out today,
all right, Love you guys.