Doc Rivers has amassed nearly 1,100 wins in his NBA coaching career and won an NBA title in 2008.
A day after firing coach Adrian Griffin, the Milwaukee Bucks reportedly are hiring Doc Rivers to fill that role. According to multiple reports, Rivers and the Bucks have agreed to a deal to make him the team’s new coach.
Milwaukee Bucks are hiring Doc Rivers to be the franchise’s next head coach, league sources tell @NBAonTNT, @BleacherReport. pic.twitter.com/UMeQ7bTK4d
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) January 24, 2024
Next steps for Bucks: Rivers is moving back to an NBA bench as a coach after starting this season as a TV analyst with ESPN.
The Bucks had named Joe Prunty as interim coach after Griffin’s firing, but that role will be short-lived. Prunty had served previous interim stints in Milwaukee and Atlanta. The hope is Rivers can perhaps turn Milwaukee’s season around despite a 30-13 record.
The Bucks are No. 21 in defensive rating and No. 25 in opponent points in the paint despite having a pair of defensive stalwarts in star Giannis Antetokounmpo and center Brook Lopez. The Bucks’ core of Antetokounmpo, seven-time All-NBA guard Damian Lillard and a cast of solid role players has helped Milwaukee tie the Minnesota Timberwolves for the NBA’s second-best record.
Although the Bucks have one of the league’s best records, they face a much tougher schedule the rest of the way. They’ve produced some troublesome performances while going 6-5 in January, though they’ve won five of their last six games.
They lost back-to-back games against the Indiana Pacers, who are 4-1 against Milwaukee this season. They trailed by 31 points at halftime of a 132-116 home loss to Utah in which Lillard was unavailable. They needed a Lillard 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Sacramento at home in overtime and suffered a 40-point loss at Cleveland last week when Antetokounmpo was out with a bruised right shoulder.
Rivers’ history: Last season, Rivers led the Philadelphia 76ers to their second straight 50-win season behind Kia MVP Joel Embiid. But the Sixers once again failed to reach the Eastern Conference Finals or NBA Finals and Rivers was fired after the team suffered a third straight exit in the East semifinals.
As the season began, Rivers said he was settling into his position as an analyst, but did not rule out a return to the sidelines in 2023-24.
“Do I miss coaching?” Rivers said in an Oct. 24 story with The Associated Press. “Let the season go on, and I’ll find that out. But this is the journey I’m on right now.”
Ironically, Rivers was fired in Philadelphia just 12 days before the Bucks parted with former coach Mike Budenholzer. After Budenholzer was fired, the Bucks hired Griffin as coach roughly a month later. A few days before that, the Sixers hired Nick Nurse as coach.
Before coaching the 76ers, Rivers was previously coach of the Clippers (2013-20), the Boston Celtics (2004-13) and the Orlando Magic (1999-2003). He is 1,097-763 in the regular season and 111-104 in the playoffs in his career, having guided the Celtics to an NBA title in 2007-08 and an NBA Finals berth in 2009-10. Rivers needs one more win to tie Larry Brown for No. 8 in NBA coaching wins.
He won NBA Coach of the Year honors with the Magic in 1999-2000 and was named one of the 15 Greatest Coaches in NBA History in 2022.
Rivers has plenty of Milwaukee ties, as he played for Marquette from 1980-83 and his No. 31 jersey hangs from the Fiserv Forum rafters.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
