L.A. Notes: Rivers, Clippers, Maggette, Lakers
After Friday’s announcement that Doc Rivers will surrender his front office role to solely focus on coaching, it was the crescendo to a tumultuous dual role for the NBA champion coach, Bill Oram of The Orange County Register writes.
Rivers, for four seasons, was tasked with both assembling a quality roster and then leading it to success on the court. As Oram writes, despite winning 50+ games each year with Rivers at the helm, the Clippers failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs. So, while Rivers is often viewed as one of the NBA’s elite head coaches, his career in the front office is “spotty,” Oram adds.
“Given final say on personnel moves, something Rivers coveted and chased all the way across the country to L.A., the career coach struggled annually to find the right mix of role players,” Oram writes about the man who led the 2007/08 Celtics to the NBA championship.
Despite the controversy that came with it, Rivers’ acquisition of his son, Austin Rivers, was a good move that yielded a quality role player for a team filled with superstar talent. Besides that, the obvious turmoil within the team became obvious, highlight by notable departures of J.J. Redick and Chris Paul this offseason. While Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan remain with the team, the direction of the Clippers with Lawrence Frank assuming Rivers’ former role and it will take a while before a prognosis on that move is available.
Read more about news surrounding the Los Angeles teams:
- Despite his role with the organization being restructured, Rivers will still make every penny of the five-year, $50MM deal he signed with the team in 2014, tweets Sam Amick of USA Today.
- Los Angeles Times’ Brad Turner tweets that the Clippers interviewed Mark Hughes and Shareef Abdur-Rahim for front office roles last week.
- In a separate tweet, Turner reports that Corey Maggette, Lester Conner, and Mo Peterson interviewed for the role of director of player development and special assistant to Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka. Maggette, however, has withdrawn his name from consideration, per Turner (via Twitter).
Odds & Ends: Mavs, Harris, Kirilenko, Thibodeau
The past two summers haven't gone as planned for the Mavericks, but there's still no need to panic and trade Dirk Nowitzki, as Gil LeBreton of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram argues. LeBreton is confident the additions of Monta Ellis and Jose Calderon will help the team. Here's more on the Mavs, along with other news from the Association:
- A toe injury scuttled the deal between the Mavs and Devin Harris, but both team and player still have interest in coming to another agreement at some point in the offseason, according to Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News.
- HoopsWorld's Joel Brigham looks at several affordable role players left on the free agent market, including Samuel Dalembert, who appears close to a deal with the Mavs.
- The Wolves' decision to replace David Kahn with Flip Saunders atop their front office played a role in Andrei Kirilenko's decision to opt out of his $10.2MM contract with Minnesota, the Nets signee tells Pavel Osipov of Sport-Express (translation via Alexander Chernykh of Rush'n Hoops; hat tip to NetsDaily).
- Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau might not be pleased with the team's decision to let go of close friend and assistant coach Ron Adams, but Thibs' says his relationship with GM Gar Forman is fine, notes Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times.
- Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel answers reader questions and wonders whether Heat president Pat Riley's statement that he won't use the amnesty clause is brinksmanship designed to up the trade value of Mike Miller and Joel Anthony.
- A respected longtime NBA executive tells Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports that Jahlil Okafor is the most skilled high school center he's ever scouted (Twitter link). Okafor is 17 years old, so he won't be draft-eligible until 2015.
- Lester Connor and Chris Farr are joining the Nuggets coaching staff, the Denver Post’s Chris Dempsey tweets.
Spencer Lund contributed to this post.