Glen Davis spent a big chunk of his NBA career playing under Doc Rivers, so he knows very well the capacities of the veteran coach and what he’s able to do on the bench. Rivers won a championship with the Celtics in 2008 after the C’s assembled the famous Big 3 of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.
That was a great season for Boston but Davis believes Rivers was lucky to win the championship considering the incredible team he had. During an old interview with Chris Broussard of Fox Sports on his In the Zone podcast (via Bleacher Report), Davis said:
“What Doc had in ’08 [with the Boston Celtics] was special and he was lucky as hell … Lucky as hell. The year before that they was wearing trash bags … But then the next year they win it, now he is one of the best coaches ever? I’m just not feeling that. You know what I mean? You give credit to KG [Kevin Garnett]. You give credit to Paul Pierce. You give credit to Ray Allen. Those are the guys who made sure whatever Doc needed to be done, got done.”
After Rivers landed in Boston, the team had a losing record in two of his first three seasons before the team acquired Garnett and Allen in 2007. Big Baby was convinced other people deserved credit for those moves and those performances than the current Clippers head coach.
“You give credit to Danny Ainge. That’s the one you give credit to,” Davis said. “Because I know multiple times [Ainge] had to talk to Doc, just to say ‘Hey Doc, leave em alone. Hey Doc, ease up.’ I’m off that Doc tip.”
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Doc landed in the Clippers and had a good team with Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin. However, he’s yet to win a championship with the Los Angeles team. One would say the biggest proof of his capacity as a coach is how he took a team full of young and role players to make the playoffs last season and compete with the all-powerful Golden State Warriors, winning two games against the Dubs in the postseason.
Now Rivers has one of the deepest teams in the league, led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The 58-years-old has everything to win another NBA championship and show everybody that he’s not lucky or overrated.
