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How Good Will LA Clippers’ Coach Doc Rivers Be At Challenges?

By Ryan Snellings

SAN ANTONIO, TX - DECEMBER 13: Doc Rivers head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers reacts during game against the San Antonio Spurs at AT&T Center on December 13, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that , by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images)
SAN ANTONIO, TX - DECEMBER 13: Doc Rivers head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers reacts during game against the San Antonio Spurs at AT&T Center on December 13, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that , by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images) /
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With the NBA approving the use of coaching challenges this year, we take a guess on how effective LA Clippers’ coach Doc Rivers will be.

Today, the NBA Board of Governors approved the use of Coach’s Challenges for the upcoming 2019-20 season. The challenges have already been experimented with in both the G-League and Summer League, so the implementation should be simple.

In case you missed the report, here are the plays coaches can challenge:

  • Fouls on a team’s own players
  • Out-of-bounds
  • Goaltending
  • Basket interference

Coaches only get one challenge per game and have to twirl their finger to initiate the review. Like the NFL, the team must have a timeout remaining to use a challenge.

How good will LA Clippers’ Doc Rivers be at challenges? Well, we aren’t sure he’ll be so great.

If there’s one thing Doc Rivers is known for outside of being a great coach, it’s his “Doc face“. Doc often looks bewildered by calls, so we have to think he’ll be breaking out that challenge nearly every single game. If he’s doing that 82 times, we aren’t sure it’ll go to well.

For reference, in 2016 in the NFL, coaches were successful on 48% of their challenges. We have to assume that with this being a new system, NBA coaches might do worse than the average will eventually be. We also have to keep in mind that basketball games don’t have the same benefits football games do.

In the NFL, coaches have time to talk to staff members in the booth who can view a replay at several different angles prior to the next play starting. With basketball, the challenge-able event will occur and then the opposing team will line up to inbound immediately. Coaches won’t have time to talk to anyone and it will be solely at their discretion.

In short, Doc will likely be the Andy Reid of the NBA when it comes to challenges (Shout-out to Logan Rapp for the comparison).

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The new challenge system will be interesting and is a smart move to advance the game with modern technology. There will certainly be hiccups in the implementation, but ultimately this is a smart move for the league. For Clippers’ fans, even though we’ll probably lose a lot of challenges, we’ll probably get a whole lot more of Doc face.

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