To start off, I just wanna say I am not the biggest fan of Doc Rivers. Sure, he helped lead the Celtics to the '08 title and brought them to a Game 7 two years later. But seriously, how hard is it to get to the Finals two out of three years when you have the Truth, KG and Ray Ray playing near their peaks? I've always felt that Doc got a bit too much credit for those teams success and then fled to the Clippers at the first sight of a rebuild, new 5 year contract be damned. That being said, Big Baby's recent comments on Chris Broussards' podcast come off as nothing more than sour grapes to me. I've only read this post about it on Boston.com so there may be some context missing, but Baby doesn't hold back in his criticism of the man who coached him for the majority of his career. Lets take a look at what he had to say quote by quote.
“What Doc had in ’08 was special and he was lucky as hell,” Davis explained. “The year before that they was wearing trash bags, but then the next year they win it, now he is one of the best coaches ever? I’m just not feeling that. You know what I mean? You give credit to KG. You give credit to Paul Pierce. You give credit to Ray Allen. Those are the guys who made sure whatever Doc needed to be done, got done."
Don't really have a problem with him saying this. Like I said before, having 3 of the top 15-20 players at the time on your team greatly increases your chance of winning. Pierce being hurt in the '07 season led to the trash bag wearing but in all honesty, nobody was promoting Doc as a Coach of the Year candidate in any of his Boston seasons before KGs arrival.
“And see now it’s easy for Doc to do his job. And then you give credit Danny Ainge. That’s the one you give credit to. Because I know multiple times [Ainge] had to talk to Doc, just to say ‘Hey, Doc, leave ’em alone. Hey, Doc, ease up.’ Like, there’s points where you ease up.’ I would play good games and Doc wouldn’t even give me like, hey. I’d play great games and he’d be: ‘Go do it again.’ You know? You want to hear that, ‘Hey, great job kid. Good job, man. Keep it up.’ But not, ‘Go do it again.’ So I’m off that Doc tip man.”
Baby starts to earn his nickname with this quote. He is "off that Doc tip" because Rivers asked him to bring it every night and didn't pat him on the back after every good performance. Hell, I was a huge Big Baby guy when he played for the Celtics, but even I'm hard-pressed to think of any memorable moment he had outside of that game winning shot during the playoffs in Orlando. What I do remember was him being known for inconsistent play, so maybe "do it again" is the right way to coach him up. Being upset because Doc didn't say "great job, kid" enough is childish.
“I don’t like what he’s doing right now,” Davis said. “I don’t like his organization, what he’s doing, his teams. We had something in ’08 and that was it. You know what I mean? That’s what that is. So far, like, I didn’t like how the way he handled me on my exit. Yeah, hold yourself accountable, but at the same time I had a broken ankle. I won a championship with you and you don’t even really call me. I’ve got to beg you to call me [in free agency]. My agent has to beg you to call me.”
Ah. It all makes sense now. Doc, having coached Big Baby in 6 out of his 8 professional seasons, decided he was done coaching him. It could have been his inconsistency, his maturity level, how bad his farts smelt on the team charter, but for whatever reason, Doc didn't make an effort to sign him after he got injured in the '15 playoffs. That is Docs' right. Just because you won a title with him doesn't mean he has to offer you a job every time you need one. You don't see James Posey and Eddie House, two players with much more significant contributions to that title team than Baby, bitching that Doc doesn't return their "u up?" texts. Again, I am not a huge fan of Doc. He wasn't a good coach until he got KG and Ray and he is blowing a golden opportunity with the Clippers because of his incompetence as an executive. But Big Baby is full of shit and someone needs to change his diaper.
No comments:
Post a Comment