So, Doc Rivers... Still the Sixers' Coach, Then?
I don't get it -- but also, I kinda get it.
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A common debate among Process Trusters as the 2022 regular season gave way to the playoffs was over the answer to the question, "How far do the Sixers have to get in the playoffs for Doc to save his job this year"? Answers varied: Some believed he might be able to avoid the axe with a trip to the conference finals, others thought he needed to get all the way to the Larry O'Brien trophy for his seat to be secure. I can't say I recall any responses to the specific tune of "If he can force a Game Six in the conference semis against the easiest second-round draw we could realistically ask for, that should be good enough," though.
Yet here we are. The Sixers bowed out in the second round -- again -- and whatever benchmarks you may have personally set for the Sixers' embattled bench general and his team's postseason performance, they were almost certainly not met. But against all odds (or at least all annoyed May and June prognostications), the 2022-'23 season is nearly upon us, and it appears the Good Doctor will once again begin the season pacing the sidelines for the Liberty Ballers, shouting at the refs and at Paul Reed with a voice hoarser than me after doing the Chris Cornell parts of "Hunger Strike" at karaoke. It doesn't seem like anyone's even all that mad about it anymore; I can’t even remember the last time I saw anyone even mention Doc — as if within weeks (days?) of realizing this was going to be the case, we accepted that it was probably an inevitability all along.
I don't get it -- but also, I kinda get it.
In case you've forgotten, though -- it has been three months, which is closer to multiple years in Sixers Offseason Time -- let's take a moment to remember where we left off with Doc Rivers. Obviously, Sixers fans were mad at him for a lot of the reasons sports fans are always mad at their coaches: uninspired game plans, failure to make quick and effective adjustments, occasional big-picture hardheadedness, feelings of occupational entitlement, etc. But our anger was specifically localized by the end of the season on one particularly unique distillation of his stubbornness and arrogance: His commitment, beyond all logic or self-preservation, to giving DeAndre Jordan consistent minutes.
Let's not let it get lost to history how spectacular a grandstanding this was: Doc defended his right to keep playing his veteran big man like a man whose entire character and sense of self hung at the balance, and treated those who questioned him like a 13-year-old telling his younger brother to stop hitting himself, despite all metrics (and analysts ranging from John Hollinger to Charles Barkley) unanimously declaring him washed. Probably unlikely that the Sixers would've won the Heat series -- or even one of the first two games -- had he kept DeAndre on the bench, but Rivers' "We’re gonna keep starting him whether you like it or not” battle cry basically taped a "SCAPEGOAT ME" sign onto the backs of both both player and coach. I wondered if he was actively trying to get himself fired -- or at least daring Daryl Morey to pull the trigger.
But maybe he just knew that time and stasis were on his side. Aside from having three years left on his five-year contract -- while the Sixers had just gotten to the end of the three-year Brett Brown extension that they canned him one year into -- Doc also had the good fortune of going into a Sixers offseason tooled around solidification, fortification, and consistency. Morey already had plenty on his plate with the gymnastics necessary to pull off the pitch-perfect family reunion Sixers offseason, one well received enough to be ranked by some as the NBA summer's finest; why risk endangering the happy calm by introducing the chaos of a coaching change? If you're finally going to Run It Back, you don't replace your head coach with an unknown quantity.
Not immediately, anyway. Maybe Morey needed to stick with his incumbent coach in order to ensure an undramatic start to what most expect to be a highly successful regular season. But the Good Doctor's presence could also serve as something of an insurance plan in case the team doesn't live up to early expectations. I consulted FOTB Jason Lipshutz -- with whom I've had dozens (if not close to triple digits' worth) of conversations themed around the particulars of Doc's job security -- whose prediction validated my own inklings: "I think he will have a very short leash, and if they start off slow, Doc is gone and Sam Cassell steps in." It wouldn't be the first time for Daryl, even on a James Harden-stewarded team: He fired Kevin McHale 11 games into the Rockets' 2016-'17 season, and McHale had actually made the conference finals the year before. (Also probably worth noting that Cassell seems to be getting a hard push lately as the team's Maxey Whisperer -- either by a coordinated PR push or by his own natural, boundless Real Hooper charm -- which certainly feels like the right star to be hitching his wagon to this summer.)
Maybe it's not as calculated as all that though, on either side. Maybe Doc just knows that his proven (and highly compensated) Devil You Knowness is gonna be preferable to a hard reset with an unproven coach more often than not. And maybe Daryl just knows that for all Doc's flaws, he's pretty skilled at racking up regular-season wins and getting a veteran team through a long year -- and that for better or worse, these Sixers in particular are kinda built for that 82-game slog. Maybe the kind of political considerations that led to Morey signing Jordan in the first place are the same that keep him from overreacting to Doc hubristically leaning on DAJ when it was clear to anyone watching that he was never more than seconds away from tipping over. Maybe -- maybe more than maybe -- we'll be having this exact conversation again next offseason. And maybe it'll last even shorter than it did this time.