Doc Rivers has more experience coaching All-Star Games than he does with the Bucks.
Despite getting hired midway through the season, Doc Rivers could end up coaching the 2024 NBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis.
Unlike the All-Star roster, the coaches are not voted into the NBA All-Star Game but rather given as an honor to the teams with the best record in each conference. These are typically based on the standings two weeks before the actual event.
As of right now, the Minnesota Timberwolves (Chris Finch) and the Boston Celtics (Joe Mazzulla) have the best record in their respective conferences.
Due to the Riley Rule, however, Mazzulla is ineligible to coach the Eastern Conference this season. This rule was created after Pat Riley coached the Western Conference in the All-Star Game each year except one between 1982 and 1990.
Was reminded of something this morning
All-Star coaching staffs decided by this weekend. It is whoever clinches the top record in conference by February 4.
No repeats. Boston/Denver staff will get weekend off.
Doc Rivers or Nick Nurse in East. Daigneault/Finch/Lue in West.
Instead, the nod is given to the team with the next-best record at the cutoff date on Feb. 4. That means if the standings hold, after replacing former Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin, (somehow) Rivers would get the nod.
Rivers, who coached the All-Star game in 2008 and 2011 and again in 2021, has coached just one game for Milwaukee so far this season and it was a loss against the Denver Nuggets. At this point, he has more experience coaching in NBA All-Star Games than he does coaching the Bucks.
But it is far from a guarantee that Rivers gets the honor because the standings could change after the next few days. Milwaukee is on the road for three games (Trail Blazers, Mavericks, Jazz) between now and the cutoff date. If they do not play well, something especially bizarre could happen.
Philadelphia’s Nick Nurse, who replaced Rivers as head coach of the 76ers this past offseason and coached the NBA All-Star Game in 2020, could get the call instead.
The Sixers still have two road games (Warriors, Jazz) and one home game (Nets) before the Feb. 4 deadline. Philly is currently two games behind Milwaukee in the standings and could catch the Bucks.
Two other Eastern Conference All-Star Game head coaching candidates include New York’s Tom Thibodeau (for the first time since 2012) and Cleveland’s J.B. Bickerstaff (as a first-time honor).
The Knicks will host three home games (Jazz, Pacers, Lakers) while the Cavaliers have a home game (Pistons) and two road games (Grizzlies, Spurs) remaining.
In the West, meanwhile, either Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault or L.A. Clippers head coach Ty Lue could potentially surpass Minnesota’s Finch.
Curiously enough, Lue coached in the 2016 NBA All-Star Game under similar circumstances in which Rivers could get asked this season. He took over after Cleveland fired David Blatt even though the Cavaliers (30-11) had the best record in the East.
A look at one of the greatest Lakers teams that didn’t win the NBA championship.
The Los Angeles Lakers are arguably the NBA’s most storied franchise by virtue of their 17 world championships. They’ve been so successful over the decades that even when they haven’t won it all, they have had some impressive squads that were memorable, talented, star-studded and very competitive.
After the Lakers won the 1987 championship, head coach Pat Riley guaranteed they would win it again the following year and become the first NBA team to repeat as champs in 19 years. They did exactly that by defeating the Detroit Pistons in a close, hard-fought seven-game final series.
After that, the challenge was to end the decade of the 1980s the way they started it — with a world title.
A look at one of the greatest Lakers teams that didn’t win the NBA championship.
The Los Angeles Lakers are arguably the NBA’s most storied franchise by virtue of their 17 world championships. They’ve been so successful over the decades that even when they haven’t won it all, they have had some impressive squads that were memorable, not to mention talented, star-studded and very competitive.
The 1989-90 season looked to be a transition year for the Lakers. Legendary center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had just retired, and several of their key players were getting older and had significant wear and tear. They ended up playing very well and posting a stellar record, but in the end, the season came crashing down to earth for them.
HBO’s Winning Time reminded us Magic Johnson wanted to leave the Lakers during his third season in the league.
Editor’s note: All interviews for this story were completed prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Magic Johnson played for the Lakers during the entirety of his NBA career. But all of that nearly ended when he demanded a trade in 1981.
Such frustration seemed unlikely when Johnson was named NBA Finals MVP as a rookie in 1980. Fans saw the joys of victory during the first season of HBO’s Winning Time when Paul Westhead (brilliantly portrayed by Jason Segel) improbably led the Lakers to win an NBA championship during his first year as interim head coach.
“Season 1 is about a guy stepping into his adulthood and it’s a series of unlikely circumstances that leads to an unlikely victory,” Jason Segel told For The Win. “It’s really a story of underdog triumph.”
But after he became the permanent head coach of the team the following season, his new offensive game plan “did not endear him” to Johnson or his similarly skeptical teammates.
Stubbornly, he stuck to his intuition and may have lost the locker room in the process.
“[Season 2] is the story of somebody who probably didn’t belong to be in this position in the first place trying to hold the ring of power and just not being able to do it,” Segel said. “He can’t see his way out of pride.”
Los Angeles began the 1981-82 season with a 2-4 record and the chemistry on the team was awful. According to sportswriter Jeff Pearlman, the author of the Winning Time source material, Johnson refused to board the team bus after the Lakers lost to the Spurs during the sixth game of the season.
Winning Time is elite television they got Magic Johnson cooking Utah Jazz fans 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/IzT5CUMQfy
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) August 28, 2023
A few games later, Johnson and Westhead reached a breaking point during a game against the Jazz at the Salt Palace in Utah (via Los Angeles Times):
After receiving a postgame lecture from Westhead, Magic … said: “I can’t play here anymore. I want to leave. I want to be traded. I can’t deal with it no more. I’ve got to go in and ask [Buss] to trade me.”
HoopsHype recently ranked Johnson’s trade request as the second-most important in league history. The reason is that, despite riding a five-game win streak, Westhead was fired the next day.
Westhead was eventually replaced by longtime Lakers head coach Pat Riley, who is portrayed in the show by Adrien Brody. The two coaches, who were once friends, saw their relationship dissolve largely over differing opinions about how to coach Johnson.
“In order to save himself and Magic and help everyone live up to their potential, it causes a rift in his friendship with Paul,” Brody explained. “There’s really a lot of humanity going on in the game and their lives.”
Segel recalls a pivotal moment in the timeline of the two coaches that happens on screen.
“Pat Riley has been protecting me from myself for most of the season,” Segel said. “There is a moment where I go to go after Magic and Pat stops me and I turn on Pat and I say, ‘What, Pat?’ really aggressively and you see on Adrien’s face and he makes the decision to just say nothing. He lets me end it.”
Riley admirably stepped up with Westhead no longer in the picture.
Led by Riley after Westhead was ousted, the Lakers were 50-21 (.704) to end the season and Los Angeles went on to win another championship. That may not have happened if Johnson hadn’t publicly requested his trade, which then effectively forced Westhead out of his position.
Jason Segel is putting on a masterclass as Paul Westhead in Winning Time
According to Rodney Barnes, who is an executive producer and writer on the show, Segel was able to perfectly capture Westhead’s many flaws during this season of Winning Time.
“Everybody is not cut out for [the job],” Barnes said. “To have the pressure of a [personality like] Pat Riley sitting next to you the whole time and what that does to you emotionally and psychologically … Jason Segel is fantastic.”
HBO’s Winning Time contrasts on two basketball philosophies. Did the cast prefer structure like Paul Westhead or improv like Pat Riley?
Editor’s note: All interviews for this story were completed prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Despite winning a championship during Magic Johnson’s rookie year, Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Pat Riley was so stressed he wore a neck brace for six weeks during the 1981 postseason.
Riley’s tension is evident during the second season of Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, which premieres Sunday on HBO. The Lakers had clashing basketball ideologies: then-head coach Paul Westhead’s rigid and deliberate offense named The System versus Riley’s fast-paced and more improvised style.
When Westhead’s system failed, the Lakers fired him after just 11 games in 1981. Riley moved in as the replacement, instituting his run-and-gun style that became known as Showtime basketball. It was a literal change of pace for the Lakers, who began playing much faster on their way to a 1982 championship.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reflected on these contrasting philosophies, writing last year that he felt Westhead’s “methodical, tactical approach” actively stifled Johnson’s spontaneity. He added that the best moments with Johnson “were less choreographed and more like jazz” while on the court.
#WinningTime explores contrasting basketball philosophies: One rigid (The System), the other improvisational (Showtime).
John C. Reilly, Adrien Brody, Jason Segel and the cast spoke about where they feel better while on set.
The pressure points between The System and Showtime, two dramatically different approaches, are a central theme in the second season of Winning Time. Decades later, the cast and crew of Winning Time worked to find the right balance with their own craft while on the set of the show as well.
They found themselves in a fairly similar position and the actors on the show are aligned with Johnson and the 1980s Lakers: They, too, prefer creativity over rigidity. But most are seeking at least some sense of balance. Max Borenstein, the showrunner for Winning Time, said that is all intentional and deliberate.
“There is a quality to the show as the whole team executes it that feels fun, and sometimes has an improvisatory vibe,” Borenstein explained to For The Win. “Sometimes it is improvised, and sometimes it just feels that way.”
Jason Segel portrays the rules-oriented Westhead, but his origins as an actor working with director Judd Apatow on the television series Freaks and Geeks were more improvisational by nature. He predominantly found himself in those types of playful comedic roles until he was cast as the author David Foster Wallace in a 2015 drama.
“I kind of cut my teeth in improv comedy, which is the run-and-gun Showtime-era approach,” Segel said. “Then I did a movie called The End of the Tour, which was all prep. I was scared. The only way I was going to accomplish it was if I prepared really, really hard.”
Segel has come to learn that there is a perfect middle ground in these two worlds.
“It is a combination of those two things. It is intense prep so that by the time you are shooting, you have complete freedom,” he added. “You’re not thinking about your lines because you know them perfectly. If something else happens, it happens. But it’s all built on the intense prep you did before.”
Brody, who plays Riley, stressed the importance of malleability. But he noted that the filmmakers ultimately have the final say in helping these ideas come to life on the screen, deferring to the de facto “coaches” of the production.
“Sometimes too much freedom doesn’t give you enough boundaries, and you can go way off. That’s why you need a great director,” Brody said. “That’s why we rely upon directors and filmmakers to have a vision and an overall vision and to make sure that what you think you’re bringing fits within it.”
Playing the exuberant Johnson, Quincy Isaiah said it’s not unlike listening to a coach.
“You got to lean on your leaders and trust that they will lead you to the promised land,” Isaiah said.
John C. Reilly, playing longtime Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss, has perhaps the strongest improvisational background of any actor on the show. Many of his most famous and iconic roles, including his appearances on The Tim and Eric Awesome Show, were largely improvised.
“I personally think actors are the best when they feel like they can do anything,” Reilly said. “It doesn’t matter. When the camera rolls, do whatever you feel. Whatever seems genuine. But I think a great director will always say, ‘You give me one just as written, and I’ll give you one where you do whatever comes out of your mouth.’”
Some of his approach comes with years of first-hand experience working alongside Winning Time executive producer Adam McKay, including in leading roles for Talladega Nights (2006) and Step Brothers (2008).
Reilly said that especially in the moment while filming, it is impossible to tell which take was actually the best one for the project.
“They’re going to pick one moment that’s best and those editors don’t give a [expletive] whether it came from the script or whether you made it up in the moment,” Reilly explained. “They just want the best moment.”
Michael Chiklis — who plays Celtics executive Red Auerbach and previously appeared in the McKay film Don’t Look Up (2021) — explained that as much as he loves to improvise with his colleagues, it is important to have structure to balance it out.
“That’s the Adam McKay school,” Chiklis said. “It says honor the script, let’s get it written as solid, and then let’s do a few where you guys can bring some improv and some jazz to it.”
Sean Patrick Small took advantage of that playbook when he was on the set of Winning Time. Sometimes, Small, portraying Larry Bird, would even ask specifically if he could do a take aimed to fail.
“Maybe you’ll get a reaction out of the other actor or maybe you’ll get somewhere by the end that you would have never thought to go and that could end up in the cut,” Small said.
That sort of approach lends itself to a fun and creative atmosphere when filming as well, according to Solomon Hughes, who plays Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“Especially working with this incredible cast of actors, there’s always going to be something new. Nobody is robotic,” Hughes said. “Everybody is bringing something special and unique to every take.”
This sort of environment allowed actress Hadley Robinson, who plays Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, to get out of her comfort zone.
“I came from structure, and so The System is probably something I would feel more comfortable with,” Robinson said. “I bet I would thrive in The System. But I feel like this show has allowed me to sort of do the Riley way a little bit more.”
When looking at what didn’t work about The System and what did work about Showtime, it isn’t too different when creating a show like Winning Time. Both the show and the offense require structure and extraordinary attention to detail, but it all comes to life on the screen with some unexpected and unscripted moments as well.
“The balance of Showtime between something that has a structure at its core and the ability to improvise and have fun around that feels like a really nice metaphor for what we try to achieve in the show,” Borenstein concluded.
While he might be a very good head coach of the NBA’s most storied franchise, Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla has a very long way to go to make the list of the best coaches to ever tote a clipboard in front of Boston’s bench, never mind across the other 29 teams of the Association.
Even the best head coaches of today’s game — with a single notable exception — would not make the cut of the greatest head coaches in NBA history according to Los Angeles Lakers legend Michael Cooper.
No, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is not the exception Cooper was talking about.
Coop and the founder of the CLNS Media network, Nick Gelso, hashed out who those legendary head coaches are on the NBA G.O.A.T. list.
Two Celtics coaches and a former player who coached elsewhere make the list, but you will have to watch the clip embedded above to hear who else made Coop’s cut.
Pat Riley, the former coach of the Lakers, as well as LeBron James, thinks L.A. can still contend for the NBA title despite its issues.
When it comes to championship basketball, Pat Riley has been there and done that.
He coached the Los Angeles Lakers to four NBA championships in the 1980s, to go with one as an assistant coach, while having Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at his side.
As team president of the Miami Heat, Riley has captured two more world titles, largely because LeBron James played for his team for four seasons.
Riley watched Abdul-Jabbar continue to play at a high level in his late 30s, and he is watching from afar as James does the same.
Despite what many naysayers have opined about the Lakers’ chances at another ring this year, their former coach believes they can get it done with the way James has been playing.
“He wants to win titles; that’s what drives him. And so for him to continue to play at this level, with that hope that this team is going to come together out there and Anthony Davis gets back, I think they got a shot. I really do. And I believe he believes that too.”
Riley said this a few weeks ago, before the Lakers made two trades that brought them D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley and Mo Bamba, giving them a much more balanced roster than previously.
As a result of those trades, some believe they have a shot at making lots of noise in the playoffs this spring as long as they build momentum and catch fire over the next six to eight weeks.
They had a ‘walk-around’ practice led by their former coach. Pat Riley.
Everyone loves talking about Magic Johnson and the “Showtime” Lakers.
There was the “Winning Time” HBO Series about the squad, starring John C. Reilly among other notable names. There is the new Hulu docu-series about the Lakers. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar started a video podcast, Skyhook, about his time with the team as well.
Even though the group hasn’t played together since 1989, the “Showtime” Lakers probably get more media coverage than most modern NBA teams. That continued this week because, as first reported by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne on The Lowe Post podcast, they reunited in Hawaii.
Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson, and other players on the team, shared some awesome photos and videos of the experience:
First time we were all together for a practice since I retired in 1989…. This is how you make a memory !! pic.twitter.com/eONXTDNHWI
This looked like a truly delightful experience for the old teammates to get together once again now more than three decades later. The guys played golf together and reflected on their success and all of their relationships.
Spectrum SportsNet will premiere a “ShowTime Reunion” special on Nov. 4 once the post-game show concludes after the Lakers play the Jazz.
Your Miami HEAT announced today that they have re-signed forward Udonis Haslem. Per club policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed. “From the first day that I saw him compete, to the last day when we retire his jersey at our FTX home, UD will go …
Tim Reynolds @ByTimReynolds
Udonis Haslem has had more than 160 Heat teammates. Including:
– 4 guys named Chris.
– 2 Andre’s.
– 3 Derricks and a Derek.
– Dwyane and Dewayne.
– 2 Eddie’s and an Eddy.
– 2 Geralds.
– A Jamaal and a Jamario.
– 4 guys named James, another named King James.
– 2 Jasons.
(more) – 10:14 PM
NBA on ESPN @ESPNNBA
Udonis Haslem is coming back for his 20th NBA season, he announced at his basketball camp on Sunday.
He joins Kobe and Dirk as the only NBA players to play 20 or more seasons for a single franchise 👏
More: https://t.co/sqB8PEOvms pic.twitter.com/EHdtmKG46o – 8:01 PM
Anthony Chiang @Anthony_Chiang
Udonis Haslem is returning to the Heat for a 20th season.
Haslem: “I got one more in me for Pop. Got one more in me for the city. Got one more in me for the team.”
What it means for Haslem and the Heat’s roster … miamiherald.com/sports/nba/mia… – 4:54 PM
Ira Winderman @IraHeatBeat
Likely Heat season-opening roster (barring trade):
Adebayo, Butler, Dedmon, Haslem, Herro, Highsmith, Jovic, Lowry, Martin, Oladipo, Robinson, Strus, Vincent, Yurtseven. With Days and Garrett on two-way deals. 15th spot vacant due to luxury tax. – 3:14 PM
Tim Reynolds @ByTimReynolds
Udonis, who lost his dad a year ago, said his father wanted him to play 20 seasons: “Won’t be the same. Won’t be as easy. Goal still remains the same. Win. Win a championship. Leave it on the line and hold your head high when it’s all over.” – 3:14 PM
Wes Goldberg @wcgoldberg
if you an explanation as to why the Heat continue to use a roster spot on Haslem then it’s probably too late for you to understand at this point – 2:58 PM
Matt Williams @StatsWilliams
Udonis Haslem will be the 3rd player in NBA history to play 20+ seasons with a single franchise. He joins…
Kobe Bryant (Lakers)
Dirk Nowitzki (Mavericks) – 2:45 PM
Shams Charania @ShamsCharania
Udonis Haslem announces at his youth camp that he will sign a new deal with the Miami Heat and return for the 20th season of his NBA career. – 2:39 PM
Tim Reynolds @ByTimReynolds
Oct. 28, 2003: Udonis Haslem makes NBA debut.
Nov. 18, 2003: Jalen Duren, now a Pistons rookie, is born.
The Heat captain will announce his plans for this season later this afternoon. – 7:43 AM