The Philadelphia 76ers made a coaching change over the summer for the first time in seven years after letting Brett Brown go and replacing him with Doc Rivers.
It was a move that had to be made as there were concerns about a lack of accountability from players and the team did not perform on the floor up to the expectations the team had. The hope now is that Rivers can right the ship and get the team back on the right track.
“I’m excited for Doc to be coaching this group,” Tobias Harris who played under Rivers before with the Los Angeles Clippers. “I think he’s a great coach. I loved my time playing for him in LA and to now be back being coached by him is going to be exciting. He’s a players coach, somebody that is really passionate and really knowledgeable in this space. He’s been doing this a long time. His basic resume for coaching speaks for itself.”
Rivers does bring in an impressive resume with a career coaching record of 943-681 and he won a championship with the Boston Celtics as well. He has experience coaching stars such as Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in Boston, Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul, and Blake Griffin in Los Angeles, even Tracy McGrady with the Orlando Magic.
“I’m excited to be coached by Doc,” said star Ben Simmons. “Somebody who’s won a championship, who’s had those experiences, who’s coached numerous talented players over his career, and he’s played in the league too. Learning from somebody else is always great. Just having different minds and voices out there so I’m very excited to get started with that.”
Rivers has also done a great job of developing younger players. Rajon Rondo flourished under him in Boston and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was very good under him with the Clippers. That is exciting for the future of a guy like Matisse Thybulle, for example.
“First impression is, before even meeting him, the caliber of coach, his resume speaks for itself, but now having the chance to be here and talk with him, work with him a little bit, I think I speak for everyone when I say we’re really excited to be playing for him as a team,” said Thybulle. “It’s an honor to play for him, but it’s also exciting to know what kind of potential we have to have someone as a leader as good as him.”
On the flip side, Brown was the only coach Simmons knew in the NBA. He also had a good relationship with Brown and that was a big influence for him moving forward and getting better as a player as well.
“We’re here to win so whatever decisions are made to help us win, I’m for it,” Simmons said. “Obviously, I have that relationship with Brett. Brett’s been a great influence on my career, having somebody like that early on to push me and motivate me was great.”
For Joel Embiid, Brown was here for all six seasons of his career. He was all the big man knew and seeing Brown go was tough for him.
“I love coach,” Embiid said of Brown. “I’ve been here, he was here before me, and then I’ve been here and at one point I thought, probably two years ago when we were starting to get going, I thought I was going to have one coach for the rest of my career. Obviously, it didn’t happen, but he knows I care about him a lot.”
Embiid also understands what Rivers brings to the table. As a guy who wants to bring a title to Philadelphia, he knows that Rivers is the one with the most experience in that area and he is looking forward to playing under his leadership.
“Adding coach Rivers, I think it was also good,” he added. “I give a lot of credit to the owners and EB (Elton Brand) who went out and made a lot of adjustments. They brought in a few guys, Daryl, one of the best in the business, and then Doc is up there so they did a great job, and having a new coach in coach Rivers, I think it’s gonna be great. Like I said, we’ve been talking a lot, trying to figure out, how I can best help as a leader. So we go from there.” [lawrence-related id=39835,39829,39810]