Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers has been extremely successful manning the bench over the course of his 18-year career. He’s led his teams to the playoffs in all but five seasons and has a championship ring to call his own.
Though, Rivers’ tenure in Southern California has been sorely disappointing for both him and the Clippers. Despite winning 50-plus games in each of his first three seasons, Los Angeles has yet to make it to the conference finals. At 40-29 this season, that seems like an unattainable goal for Rivers and Co. right now.
In addition to all this, it seems likely that the Clippers’ core will take a hit during the summer. Rumors continue to swirl that the team might trade Blake Griffin. Meanwhile, both Chris Paul and J.J. Redick are both slated to become free agents.
Now included in potential changes for the Clippers, ESPN’s Marc Stein is reporting that Rivers himself could change cities here soon. According to Stein, there have been whispers that a Rivers reunion with the Orlando Magic could be in the cards.
“There has been persistent chatter for weeks over the NBA’s front-office grapevine that the Orlando Magic and Rivers will explore a reunion down the road,” Stein reported.
Rivers coached the Magic from 1999-2004, leading the team to the playoffs in three of his five seasons.
As it relates to the Magic, they just hired Frank Vogel to replace the fired Scott Skiles. Vogel has his team playing substandard basketball with a 25-45 mark, but it would seem a tad absurd to move on from the respected coach after just one season. That’s only magnified by the fact hat Vogel replaced a coach in Skiles who manned the Magic’ bench for just one season as well.
Either way, it seems logical to believe that Rivers might end up moving on from the Clippers here soon. Whether that’s to the Magic and occurs this summer remains to be seen.