With Sunday’s last-second win over the Brooklyn Nets, Doc Rivers won his 300th game with his second team.
LA Clippers’ Coach Doc Rivers has now entered some rarefied air in the history of NBA coaches. With his 300th win as a Clipper, Doc is now one of only 7 coaches in NBA history to achieve the feat.
Rare air.@docrivers is just the 7th coach to win 300 games with two or more teams! pic.twitter.com/rpGe30ueEX
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) March 18, 2019
The others to reach 300 W’s with two separate teams?
- Phil Jackson with the Bulls and Lakers
- Lenny Wilkens with the Sonics, Cavs and Hawks
- Don Nelson with the Bucks, Mavs and Warriors
- George Karl with the Sonics and Warriors
- Dick Motta with the Bulls and Mavs
- Pat Riley with the Lakers and Heat
That’s a fantastic coaching list, and now we can add Doc Rivers with the Clippers and Celtics. Coach Rivers is reminding everybody that he’s an elite coach in this league, and it’s hard to argue with him. He now has a 887-654 record; that .576 win percentage is good for 7th among coaches with at least 1500 games.
Toward the end of the Lob City era, some Clippers fans weren’t certain about the future of Doc as the coach of our team. He famously does not want to coach through a rebuild, and with the future of the CP3/Griffin/Jordan Clips in question, it was understandable to question how long Rivers would be a part of the organization.
Instead, Rivers graciously accepted the move from coach + President of Basketball Operations to just coach. LA brought in Jerry West in a consultant role and Lawrence Frank would take on the President of Basketball Operations spot, with Michael Winger as GM. Together, this front office would avoid that messy tanking business altogether.
It’s a testament to Coach Rivers and the front office that this team has, in the past 3 years, lost or traded all three of their Big Three and yet are in the position they’re in. LA could easily be racing for the first pick instead of jostling for playoff seeding.
This is the same coach who held the team together when Donald Sterling was ousted for racist remarks. That was another time that the team could have collapsed and become a basement dweller, but Doc was a big reason it did not. His leadership has helped guide this team to what they are now.
Since taking over from Vinny del Negro as our head coach, Doc has a 300-181 record (.6237). For a Clippers fanbase that, for so long, watched a team that lost far more often than it won, seeing Coach Rivers lead the team to a 51 win pace on average is such a breath of fresh air.
Let’s raise a congratulations to our coach on this awesome feat! Any time you can be one of 7 people in NBA history to do anything, you’ve made history. Among great ownership and front office, Doc has helped turn this team into a very respected organization, and we hope to see him raise an O’Brien trophy with us one day!