Warriors head coach Steve Kerr says the NBA needs Doc Rivers' leadership, and hopes Rivers returns to coaching.
When Steve Kerr learned of Doc Rivers and the LA Clippers parting ways Monday, it felt to the Warriors head coach “like a gut punch.”
Kerr has coached the Warriors for six seasons, just one season fewer than Rivers coached the Clippers before Rivers stepped down in what Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer called a “mutual decision.”
The Clippers fell short of championship expectations this season after acquiring All-Stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George last summer. They went 49-23 in the regular season — the second-best record in the Western Conference — but squandered a 3-1 lead in the semifinals against the Denver Nuggets.
“Doc has been a terrific coach for the Clippers, an incredible ambassador, and a pillar of strength during tumultuous times,” Ballmer said in a statement. “He won a heck of a lot of games and laid a foundation for this franchise.”
Kerr was surprised by the decision to move on from Rivers, who won 63.1% of his regular-season games in LA and whose 943 career wins ranks 11th all-time by a head coach.
“When you’re in this business, nothing really should surprise any of us, and yet it does,” Kerr said. “Everybody has to do what they have to do to move forward, so that’s not what this is about.
“For me, this is just about the void that will be left with Doc not roaming the sidelines and communicating with the world and leading his team and leading the league. He just seems to me like a pillar in this league, and I think we need him.”
During his tenure, Rivers has been an outspoken advocate for social movements like Black Lives Matter, and helped lead the organization through turmoil when former owner Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA for life in 2014 after racist comments Sterling made in private meetings were made public.
In the Disney World bubble, Rivers addressed racial tensions and police reform in interviews with the media. After Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Rivers delivered an emotional appeal to the country’s leaders.
“All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear,” said Rivers after a win against the Dallas Mavericks on Aug. 25. “We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot. We’re the ones that we’re denied to live in certain communities. We’ve been hung. We’ve been shot. And all you do is keep hearing about fear.”
Kerr, 54, is part of a committee that includes Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich established by the National Basketball Coaches Association to address racial injustice and reform.
“(Rivers’) voice is so crucial with the current social movement,” Kerr said, “his words have been so powerful, his leadership has been so strong and important. So I want to just thank Doc.
“Hopefully he’ll be back coaching, if that’s what he wants to do.”
