Doc Rivers is the head coach of the Boston Celtics, and that's exactly how he likes it. No further questions.
One day after a piece by Yahoo! Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski suggested that Rivers was being eyed by Pat Riley as a potential coach of the Miami Heat, the Celtics coach came out and flatly denied the possibility. Erik Spoelstra is in charge down in South Beach, and Rivers wants no part of the short list to replace him.
"I'm not getting into that," Rivers said Saturday. "The only guy on the list is Erik, and he's the only guy that should be there. I'm not going there. That's a stupid conversation. It really is."
While Wojnarowski's piece mentioned Rivers as a potential coach for LeBron James and the Heat in the future, the Yahoo! columnist also discussed the staying power of Rivers and his time in Boston. The coach admitted that he's thought, at times, about the possibility of being a Celtic for life.
"That was a question asked of me, really," Rivers said. "And I don't even think in those terms, to be honest. I'm year to year, that's how I am. But the question asked was where else I would rather go, and I said I don't think I can go any better place than here. This is a great setup. It's phenomenal."
After playing 13 seasons in the NBA, retiring at 35 and then coaching four years with the Orlando Magic, Rivers took over with the Celtics in 2004. This is his seventh season in Boston. He's been accompanied every step of the way by Danny Ainge, who has run basketball operations in Boston since the summer of '03. The tandem of Ainge and Rivers has been the driving force behind the franchise, through good times and bad.
"We get along," Rivers said. "I think that's so important in all the organizations. You look at the Red Sox, for example, you see Theo [Epstein] and Terry [Francona]. They have a great relationship, and it works. When you can get along, it's nice. You look around and there are so many groups that are 'them and us.' Here, it's just us."
Ainge and Rivers hit a low point in 2007, when the Celtics lost 58 games with a young, misguided team. The chants of "Fire Doc" resonated through the TD Garden that spring, but the C's toughed it out and their relationship grew stronger because of it.
"Maybe it's because we went through hard times to start," Rivers said of his bond with Ainge. "Not in terms of our relationship, but just that we weren't winning a lot of games. When you endure that as a group, I think you clearly grow together, and we did that. It's amazing. Through that whole time, as a group, we grew closer. That's rare."
Rivers carries a record of 280-212 into his seventh year in Boston. He's finished last in the Eastern Conference, and he's also won an NBA championship. He's coached young teams and old ones. He may not be a committed Celtic lifer yet, but he's already been through a lifetime's worth of experiences with this Celtic team.
"Everybody's seen how he's been able to mesh the personalities," Paul Pierce said. "He's been able to coach a young team with inexperience, and he's shown he can do it with a veteran team with a lot of personalities and a lot of All-Stars, and bring them together and win. That's a difficult combination for a coach. Around the league, you look at certain coaches that can only coach young players, and some can only coach veterans. He's done it all."
And he has no plans to do it anywhere but Boston. Not Miami, not anywhere else. He's a Celtic for now, and maybe a Celtic forever.
Maybe.
