Doc Rivers: “When I left Boston and I went to the Clippers I had two goals. One was to turn that franchise into a real freaking franchise. You can make the case I went from the best franchise to the worst. By the time I left, the Clippers were a destination players wanted to go.”
“You go through a lot of crap. Like that’s part of your life,” Rivers told the Globe of resurrecting franchises. “When I left Boston and I went to the Clippers, my goal was I had two goals. One was to turn that franchise into a real freaking franchise. I mean you can make a case I went from the best franchise in basketball to the worst. By the time I left, the Clippers were a destination that players wanted to go to.”
“Winning a title, I didn’t accomplish that and we had some just brutal games where we almost got over the hump and didn’t get over the hump,” he said. “That’s just part of your legacy that you live with, but damn, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Like I would go through that all again to have the chance to do it. Like only one team wins, and like Bill Belichick [told] me, either you land the plane or it’s a crash landing.
“I mean that’s dramatic, but that’s how I try to operate. I’ve never handled [losing] well. I wish I could have done that better. Like if I have one regret, you know. I don’t have a lot of regrets because my dad was the no victim thing.”
“I think there’s one you can do a lot of winning, but the only thing I was in this for was to be the winner, and I was only that once,” he said. “That’s a harsh [expletive] way of looking at, it is. But that’s part of why you coach, and that’s part of why I was successful, is because of that drive. I wanted to beat people. Yeah, that was it. Why did you do it? Because I’m still loving it, and I love the chase of trying to be the winner.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/15/sports/sunday-basketball-notes-doc-rivers-hall-of-fame/