Doc Rivers Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Pacific Notes: Rivers, Butler, Russell, Randle

November 23rd, 2015 at 10:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Doc Rivers said the slow start for the Clippers is “on me” and insisted that the team doesn’t have chemistry problems in spite of heated conversation in the locker room after Sunday’s loss, which dropped the team to 6-7, notes Jovan Buha of Fox Sports (All Twitter links). Rivers’ coaching took some criticism from Hoops Rumors readers in Sunday’s Community Shootaround, as did the roster he assembled as the team’s president of basketball operations. Still, it’s early, and the Clippers have had the poor luck of running into the still-unbeaten Warriors twice so far this season. See more from around the Pacific Division:

Caron Butler credits the team meeting the Kings had amid the tumult and rumors after they started 1-7 for sparking the club to a 4-2 record since, reports Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times. “Behind closed doors we addressed some things and we came together. Because of that, we’re playing great basketball right now,” Butler said. “It’s about camaraderie; when things go bad, you figure it out. Whatever it is, you figure it out and you move forward, and that’s what we did.”
Butler has been a free agent four times, but he hasn’t returned to the Lakers since the team traded him away in 2005. Still, he considers Kobe Bryant a “brother for life” and remains in contact with his long-ago Lakers teammate, as he details to Pincus for the same piece. “Being up under the wing of Kobe Bryant and the relationship that we built over that time, I learned a lot about the game of basketball,” Butler said. “I took the things that I learned from him, and that’s why I had the success that I had in my career.”
Lakers coach Byron Scott is urging patience with top-10 picks D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle, pointing to the end of next season, notes Janis Carr of the Orange County Register. The Lakers are under pressure to win in the near future, as Jeanie Buss is holding brother Jim Buss to three-year timeline for a return to contention. “With D’Angelo, it might be sometime toward the end of next season where he says, ‘Man, I’m starting to get it.’ Same thing with Julius. We’re going to just be patient and keep working them the way we’ve been working them and try to bring them along,” Scott said.

Mavs Rumors: Jordan, Nowitzki, Matthews

November 12th, 2015 at 11:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban admits he has fun with the back-and-forth between his team and the Clippers over the DeAndre Jordan saga, notes Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com. Cuban fired yet another salvo Wednesday after Jordan played his first game in Dallas since pulling out of his commitment to sign with the Mavs this summer and re-signing with the Clippers instead.

“It’s not like DeAndre and I pinkie swore,” Cuban said. “It’s not like we’ve been friends forever. It’s not like he broke some trust we had. You know, he turned out to be who we thought he was.”

Jordan isn’t the only member of the Clippers whom Cuban called out Wednesday, as we detail amid the latest from Dallas:

Cuban shot a retort at Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers when told before Wednesday’s game that Rivers had said to reporters that too much was being made of the Jordan story, notes Robert Morales of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “I have no problem slamming Doc Rivers, even though he’s not going to play,” Cuban said. “I like [Clippers owner] Steve Ballmer. Lots of guys on the team, I like. But look, Doc does his radio interviews and brings it up for a reason, right? Again, Doc’s in the coaching business, he’s gotta do his job. God, there is so much I want to say.”
Rivers argues Jordan was simply exercising his collectively bargained right when he turned his back on the Mavs, notes Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News. “Teams do it all the time,” Rivers said. “It’s amazing how often teams change their mind on players. They sign free agents, tell them they’re gonna be there for the rest of their lives and they cut them or trade them.”
Dirk Nowitzki is certain that he’ll play through his current contract but isn’t sure whether he’ll keep playing or retire after that, the 37-year-old tells Sam Amick of USA Today. Nowitzki has a player option worth more than $8.692MM for next season, the last on his pact.
Wesley Matthews benefited financially when he turned down a four-year offer of about $65MM from the Kings to take what turned out to be an approximately $70MM four-year max offer from the Mavs, and he also dodged the Kings controversy, Amick writes in a separate piece. “I had my own reads [on the Kings], being in the room with the owner and the GM and talking to the coach, the president,” Matthews said to Amick. “I had my own thoughts going into it, my own reads, my own intuition. I think they mean well. I think they mean well. … I didn’t feel confident in meaning well.”

Western Rumors: Warriors, Green, Ingles

October 19th, 2015 at 8:12pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Warriors remain uncertain when coach Steve Kerr can return to the team on a full-time basis, ESPN.com’s Marc Stein and Ethan Sherwood Strauss report. Kerr, who underwent two offseason back surgeries, was with the club on its weeklong preseason trip through Southern California, but there’s no timetable on when he can coach on a daily basis, the story continues. ‎”He still doesn’t know,” interim coach Luke Walton told reporters after the team’s practice on Monday. “He’s not going to force a return.”

In other news around the Western Conference:

Clippers coach Doc Rivers feels the Warriors are too thin-skinned about recent comments he made about them, according to Diamond Leung of the Bay Area Sports Group. In an interview with Grantland, Rivers insinuated that the Warriors were lucky they didn’t have to play his club or the Spurs in the playoffs last season, Leung continues. He told reporters on Monday that he’s taken aback by the Warriors’ strong reaction to that notion, Leung adds. “I’m really surprised how sensitive they are about it,” Rivers said. “They are the champions, so they can just be the champions.” Walton told Leung that Rivers is playing mind games with the champions. “It doesn’t make much sense if it’s not,” Walton said. “There’s no other reason to bring that type of stuff up.”
Second-year point guard Erick Green is making a strong case for a Nuggets roster spot even though he doesn’t have a guaranteed contract, Chris Dempsey of the Denver Post writes. New coach Michael Malone has raved about Green during camp, though Green suffered a temporary setback with a minor knee injury, the story continues. Green, who could make $845,059 if he stays with the team through the season, bounced back with a 16-point, four-assist outing against the Thunder on Sunday night. But the club would have to move one of 15 players with guaranteed contracts in order to retain Green, Dempsey points out.
Jazz forward Joe Ingles had more difficulty deciding to take the summer off than he did re-signing with the club, Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Ingles stayed put by inking a two-year, $4.3MM deal, then opted not to participate in the Australian national team’s Olympic qualifiers over the summer. “I’m not going to say it was like the hardest decision of my life, but it was something that weighed on me for a little bit,” he told Falk. “I did want to play.”

Western Notes: Rivers, Grizzlies, Rush

September 24th, 2015 at 9:00pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports that almost losing DeAndre Jordan to the Mavericks made him realize how fragile a franchise’s window of contention can be, and it pushed him to improve the team as a whole this summer. “Losing him would’ve always gnawed at me,” Rivers said. “But it wouldn’t have stopped me. I would’ve said, [expletive] that, we’re going to figure out a way to get this right.’ But it also triggered something else for me. It might have been my front-office wake-up call. I was not a pleasant guy to me, or my staff, after I thought we lost him – and even after we got him back. We had a lot of ‘come-to-Jesus’ meetings.”

“And we rolled up our sleeves, and we got better,” Rivers continued. “Listen, maybe it’s because when we got here, the team was pretty good and we didn’t think we had to get that much better. I don’t know why. At end of the day, even the way D.J. did it, it turned out to be a blessing for our franchise. For me, it made me understand fully. We’ve got to do this [expletive] right, and build this team. It’s our responsibility.”

Here’s more from out West:

It remains to be seen if the Grizzlies can manufacture enough offense from the outside to take the next step toward a title, and while the team has improved in this area over the summer, Memphis may be lucky just to escape the first round of the playoffs, Tim Bontemps of New York Post (Facebook link) opines in his season preview.
After a 2014/15 campaign that saw him shoot an abysmal 11.1% from beyond the arc, Brandon Rush hopes to emerge as a viable sixth man candidate for the Warriors this season, Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com writes. “It was a bad year for me, an awful year,” Rush told Poole. “It was one of the worst years I’ve ever had, individually. I’ve shot in the mid-40s [from three-point range] for most of my career. To be able to go out there last year and not be able to make a shot, not be able to play . . . it made me hungry to get into the gym and go hard this summer.”

Southwest Notes: Cuban, Vaughn, Pelicans

September 22nd, 2015 at 10:20pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Clippers coach and executive Doc Rivers had been critical of some comments reportedly made by Mavs team owner Mark Cuban in the wake of DeAndre Jordan changing his mind about signing with Dallas in order to return to Los Angeles this offseason. In an interview on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” Cuban fired back at Rivers (h/t Dallas Morning News), saying, “First of all [Rivers] obviously didn’t actually hear or see what I said. Because I didn’t say a whole lot. I think I said — I responded to DJ’s Twitter apology, and that’s pretty much it. I haven’t said a whole lot about it at all, so I don’t know where he’s getting what he’s got. But I think the most interesting thing is, it shows you what someone will do when their entire future is vanishing in front of them. And that’s exactly what Doc did and I give him credit for it. His professional life was over if he didn’t get DJ. And so his back was against the wall and he did what he needed to do. More power to him. Sometimes the deals you don’t do are the best ones, so we’ll see. But Doc obviously hadn’t heard what I had said because I really didn’t say anything.”

Here’s more from the Southwest Division:

The Mavericks will begin training camp without three key contributors being fully cleared for basketball activities, Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com relays. Swingman Wesley Matthews, small forward Chandler Parsons and center JaVale McGee are all expected to gradually work themselves back into full participation in practices as they continue to recover from major injuries, MacMahon notes.
The Spurs announced today that former Magic head coach Jacque Vaughn has been hired by the team as a pro scout. The news that San Antonio was to hire Vaughn was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
Pelicans GM Dell Demps says that the blueprint of assembling an up-tempo team with ample depth that he envisioned three years ago is finally coming to pass, writes John Reid of The Times Picayune. ”We set out a plan three years ago to be exactly where we are right now,” Demps said. ”This is a big year for us. We’re really looking for this group jelling and taking that next step. I think we have over 20 games on national television, which is a great sign that people have expectations on us. We look forward to it and embrace the opportunity. We can’t wait, we’re really excited. I think it’s really going to be exciting for the fans to watch. I think it’s going to be great for the players.”

Clippers Frustrated Over Gillian Zucker’s Authority?

September 11th, 2015 at 12:48pm CST by Chuck Myron

FRIDAY, 12:48pm: Rivers denies the content of the TMZ story, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register.

TUESDAY, 8:33am: Several players and key figures within the Clippers organization feel that president of business operations Gillian Zucker is overstepping her bounds and usurping the authority of coach/president of basketball operations Doc Rivers, reports TMZ Sports. One player decided against re-signing with the Clippers because of the confusion over whether Rivers or Zucker has more power, TMZ adds. Zucker became involved in player development and decisions involving playing time, but it’s “painfully obvious” that she doesn’t understand NBA culture, having previously worked in auto racing, players said to TMZ.

Zucker denied knowledge of any such issues to TMZ, saying that the lines are “very clear” between the team’s business department, which owner Steve Ballmer hired her to oversee, and the basketball side. People within the organization who say the issues exist profess that they like Ballmer but are anxious for him to put a check on Zucker’s authority before the situation gets worse, according to TMZ.

Zucker was the impetus for the departure of more than 10 employees within the Clippers who were either fired or quit, HBO’s Bill Simmons tweets. Zucker’s administration is also having trouble with the league, team sponsors, and the team’s TV deal, Simmons adds (Twitter link). The Clippers appear to be $40MM apart on annual local TV rights fee proposals with Fox Sports, as Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times reported this week, and are considering a streaming service, as Claire Atkinson of the New York Post reported last month.

Glen Davis, Dahntay Jones, Hedo Turkoglu and Ekpe Udoh are the Clippers who became free agents July 1st and who haven’t re-signed with the team. The Clippers also waived Lester Hudson and Jordan Hamilton, neither of whom has re-signed. Ostensibly, the player who chose not to return to the Clippers because of Zucker is one of those six.

Clippers Explore Potential Jamal Crawford Trades

June 22nd, 2015 at 4:33pm CST by Chuck Myron

MONDAY, 4:33pm: Chandler is indeed an object of the Clippers’ interest, Markazi clarifies via Twitter. He’s on a lengthy list of Clippers small forward targets that includes soon-to-be free agents Pierce, Mike Dunleavy and Al-Farouq Aminu, according to Dan Woike of the Orange County Register (Twitter link).

THURSDAY, 12:10pm: The Clippers are investigating the possibility of trading Jamal Crawford, sources tell Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com, who writes amid a story about the impact of Monday trade acquisition Lance Stephenson. One option would be to trade Crawford and C.J. Wilcox to the Nuggets for Wilson Chandler, according to Markazi, though it’s unclear from the report which side, if either, has interest in such a deal.

Crawford’s salary of $5.675MM is only guaranteed for $1.5MM if he’s waived by the end of June 30th, though he remains a productive player who doesn’t seem like a candidate for a purely salary-clearing move. Still, the arrival of Stephenson, who plays Crawford’s positions, would appear to give L.A. less of a need for the two-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner.

Clippers coach/executive Doc Rivers told Fred Roggin of The Beat 980 this week that he’s looking for a starting small forward to replace Matt Barnes, whom the team sent out in the Stephenson trade, as Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times relayed via Twitter. The team is reportedly interested in Paul Pierce should he opt out from the Wizards. Chandler, who’ll make nearly $7.172MM on an expiring contract next season after the Nuggets let his partial guarantee date pass this spring, would probably fit that bill, too, though this past season was only the second in his eight-year NBA career in which he started at least 70 games.

Crawford switched agents recently, joining the Wasserman Media Group, and while his contract runs through next season, it’s perhaps a sign that he anticipated change in the nearer future. Wilcox, last year’s 28th overall pick, saw only 101 total minutes this past season, and while he has a guaranteed salary of nearly $1.16MM coming his way for 2015/16, a decision is due by October 31st on the $1.2MM-plus third-year team option attached to his rookie scale contract.

Clippers Notes: Rivers, Roster Plans, Paul

May 18th, 2015 at 6:48pm CST by Chuck Myron

Doc Rivers‘ failure to improve his bench last offseason was the biggest reason why the Clippers squandered a 3-1 series lead to the Rockets, Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk opines. Fatigue and a lack of quality role players contributed significantly to their collapse and that falls on Rivers, who holds the dual role of coach and president of basketball operations, Helin continues. Spending the team’s entire mid-level exception on Spencer Hawes, who fell out of the rotation late in the regular season, was a mistake. That killed their chances of a Paul Pierce-Rivers reunion, while Rivers’ other offseason signings — Jordan Farmar, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Jared Cunningham and Ekpe Udoh — made no impact, according to Helin. Along with re-signing DeAndre Jordan, the Clippers need more depth to take the next step, Helin concludes.

In other news involving the Clippers:

Rivers acknowledged to Sam Amick of USA Today the challenge the Clippers face to upgrade their roster with limited resources, given their constraints against the cap. “I want to fix it,” Rivers told the USA Today scribe. “I want to win. That’s why I came here. I knew when I came here that roster-wise it was going to be very difficult. The first thing I did before I took this job, I looked at the roster and we laughed. I was like, ‘What the [expletive] can we do with this?’ It was more the contracts. But we have to try to do it somehow. I don’t know how yet, but something will work out.”
The Clippers could open some flexibility via trade, but Rivers seemed to indicate a preference for keeping the core together, as Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com relays. “You don’t rule out anything, but I like our group,” Rivers said. “I really do. Teams that have stuck it out, in the long run if you look at sports history, have done better than teams that have blown it up. We’re really close, clearly. It might be a defensive guy; it might be one more guy. I don’t know yet.”
Rivers affirmed he has no desire to overhaul the roster since the team was so close to making the Western Conference Finals, Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times tweets.
Trading Chris Paul would allow Blake Griffin to expand his game, refresh the team’s talent base and give it a new identity, Kevin Ding of Bleacher Report speculates. The team gets overly emotional and loses its composure in the most difficult of situations and a radical step might be needed to change that dynamic, Ding concludes.

Latest On Clippers, DeAndre Jordan

May 18th, 2015 at 1:50pm CST by Chuck Myron

1:50pm: Rivers more or less confirmed that the Clippers will offer Jordan a max deal when asked at the team’s season ending press conference today, as Markazi relays (Twitter link).

“Yeah, I think I can say that,” Rivers said.

12:51pm: Reiter expands on the alleged rift between Jordan and Paul in a full story.

12:31pm: Jordan and Chris Paul have had a falling out this season, sources tell Bill Reiter of Fox Sports 1, who suggests it’s a factor that’s liable to sway the center to sign elsewhere (Twitter link).

9:16am: It’s “obvious” that the Clippers will do whatever it takes to retain DeAndre Jordan this summer, coach/executive Doc Rivers said postgame Sunday to reporters, including Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. The Clippers are expected to offer Jordan a five-year max contract, sources tell Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com. It’ll take such an offer to bring him back, writes Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, and chatter has persisted for a while that Jordan is anxious to move someplace where he wouldn’t be seen as the third cog, according to Sam Amick of USA Today.

“DJ loves us, but you’ve always got to be concerned,” Rivers said to Amick. “DJ would be great. We’ve got to try to do whatever we can. He’s obviously a free agent, and he has earned that right to be free. I don’t want to say much on it, but we love him.”

Jordan, who comes in eighth in the latest Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings, has expressed through back channels that he’ll be “extremely interested” in signing with the Mavs this summer, as Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com reported last month. The center, a Texas native, told Amick and USA Today colleague Jeff Zillgitt in March that the Clippers weren’t necessarily the favorites to retain him, despite their ability to offer five years and 7.5% raises while other teams, the Mavs included, are capped at four years and 4.5% raises. Still, in that same interview, Jordan called Rivers “my biggest supporter and the best coach I’ve ever had” and expressed his satisfaction with playing for the Clippers. Jordan said after Sunday’s loss that free agency wasn’t on his mind, as Woike notes.

“I’ve been here for seven years, so this is what I’m used to,” Jordan said Sunday. “But I’m not thinking about that, man. [The loss is] still so fresh tonight. It’s tough.”

Rivers cited Jordan’s affection for the franchise to Wojnarowski, injecting a level of optimism into the team’s pursuit to retain the defensive stalwart and league-leading rebounder, who’ll turn 27 in July.

“You can’t take anything for granted, but DJ loves being a Clipper,” Rivers said to Wojnarowski. “DJ loves being here. We have an amazing relationship.”

The Clippers are under pressure to re-sign Jordan, since they already have more than $58MM in guaranteed salary for next season against a projected $67.1MM salary cap. It would cost the Clips almost $6.72MM in salary that’s currently non-guaranteed to keep Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes under contract. All that means is that the team wouldn’t have the resources to come up with a center anywhere as valuable as Jordan if he were to walk.

And-Ones: Rondo, Towns, Rivers

February 25th, 2015 at 10:23pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Rajon Rondo was suspended for one game by the Mavs for conduct detrimental to the team, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets. The point guard and coach Rick Carlisle had a verbal altercation on the court that led to Rondo being benched in Dallas’ game against Toronto on Tuesday. The argument continued inside the Mavs’ locker room after that game, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com (Twitter link). Rondo becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer and it’s unknown if his friction with Carlisle will impact the veteran’s decision on possibly re-signing with Dallas.

In other news around the league:

University of Kentucky forward Karl-Anthony Towns is threatening to surpass Duke big man Jahlil Okafor as the No. 1 pick in the June draft, according to draft expert Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required). Towns is more athletic, a better defender and a superior shot-blocker compared to Okafor, in Ford’s evaluation, and some NBA GMs that Ford interviewed believe that Towns is the better long-term prospect.
Doc Rivers, who is the Clippers’ president of basketball operations, has been a failure as an executive, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times. Rivers has not found an adequate backup at small forward behind Matt Barnes, secured a rotation player in the draft or fortified his bench, Bolch contends. Rivers’ inability to re-sign Darren Collison and his commitment to Spencer Hawes, whom he signed to a four-year contract during the off-season, are examples of his shortcomings as an executive, Bolch adds. Hawes is averaging 6.5 points and 3.8 rebounds this season, a reflection of his minimal impact.
The Heat sent $369K to the Pelicans to complete the Norris Cole side of the deal which brought Goran Dragic to Miami, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets. The Heat also gave the Suns $2.2MM in that same trade.
Victor Claver could wind up with Spanish power Real Madrid, David Pick of Eurobasket.com reports (Twitter link). Any Liga ACB team seeking his services must negotiate with Valencia, which owns his rights, Pick added in a separate tweet. The 26-year-old forward played in 10 games with the Trail Blazers this season before he was acquired by the Nuggets last week. Claver was subsequently waived by Denver.