They Fired The Wrong Guy, Sorry Doc Rivers. Try Again?

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Doc Rivers just got fired again, this time as coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.

This bit of déjà vu must be haunting him right about now.

But seriously, when is it, not a coach’s fault?

When do the wins and losses on the court have more to do with how the players are playing than how the coach is coaching?

Can a coach take a team, any team, and make them winners just by making the right moves?

We already know that even putting together dream teams often doesn’t work. The Brooklyn Nets tried it with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden from 2019 - 2021, how did that work out? Dollar for dollar it was pretty much a failed experiment. None of the three are still with the team.

They even tried it once before in 2013 with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Jason Terry, giving away future draft picks that turned into Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Was it worth it?

So, if buying a championship team with readymade superstars doesn’t work - then what does?

When a player like James Harden or Joel Embiid has the ball, they are expected to score. Not every time, but yeah, every time. Just watch the faces of the fans in the stands - they’re sure it’s going in every time the player shoots. But it doesn’t.

It never does, not for anyone. No one is perfect.

Now Joel Embiid won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award for 2023, the season that led to the playoffs that the 76ers just got eliminated from. Was it his fault they didn’t win?

When was the last time a player scored 100 points in an NBA game to carry a whole team to a win? Excluding Wilt Chamberlain - no one.

They’re called NBA teams, because, well, there’s no “I” in team. There are 15 players possessing varying levels of skill and ability and it takes all 15 to win a game, right? But if that’s true, then what about the head coach? What about his team - all his assistants - how much do they contribute?

Somewhere in this game, in this formula for winning, there are correct amounts of responsibility and the opposite, appropriate amounts of blame.

It’s not fun being pointed to when the pressure is on. James Harden played well through the series with Boston by most standards, Averaging 22 points and 8 assists. But in games 6 and 7 his numbers dropped - a lot. He scored 13 points in game 6 with 9 assists and 9 points in game 7 with 7 assists. That’s a big difference, well shy of his season averages and what he’s capable of.

Was it the coaching?

Was he being involved in plays that didn’t fit his game or his skills? Like having Aaron Judge trying to bunt to get on base.

Or was it the pressure? The physical fatigue from the daily grind of a long season. Was it things “upstairs” in his head that made him miss, or just great defense from the Celtics? It’s tough to know, even in hindsight, what went wrong. But history tells us - it’s usually the coach’s fault.

Joel Embiid averaged 25.5 points during the series, slightly off his MVP-winning season average of 33.1. He scored 26 in game 6 and 15 in the final game 7.

If Embiid and Harden had shot their series average in game 7, the 76ers would still have lost - by 1 point. It takes a team effort, right?

Doc Rivers has been doing his job well since 1999. Won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics in 2008. Won 1097 games during that span - a .590 winning percentage, and is in ninth place on the all-time winningest NBA coaches list - not too bad.

But in the playoffs, where the stakes are high, the pressure higher, and future wealth or obscurity often in play, Doc didn’t fare as well - but still not bad. A winning percentage of .516.

But was it losing in the playoffs that got him fired, even though he’s won consistently year after year?

Or is it something else? Something behind coaches like Phil Jackson, Greg Popovich, Eric Spoelstra, and others who win often. Who make it to the finals time and again.

Is Doc Rivers the reason his last two teams, the Clippers and 76ers didn’t make it to the finals? Or is it the players who won enough games as a team during the regular season to make it to the playoffs but couldn’t find the right angles, the right moments to score the points needed to win games?

From 1991 to 1993 the Buffalo Bills of the NFL went to four straight Super Bowls.

Do you know how hard that is to do? How many passes caught, yards gained and touchdowns scored - not to mention all of those things being consistently denied the other teams - it takes for a single team to make this happen? Unbelievable.

But they never won - not once.

Is Doc Rivers the NBA version of the Buffalo Bills? Should he worry about it? Measure himself against the greats and decide to hang it up. Turn to ESPN or TNT and call games from the booth instead.

There is no doubt many people out there are wishing that he would call it a day and start taking it easy. But probably an equal amount who have other NBA teams without coaches, who’ve had far worse records than Doc’s teams and are thinking - could be a good fit for us.

We’ll see soon enough.