Why Doc Rivers Potentially Leaving Celtics for Clippers is So Fascinating

Doc Rivers leaving the aging Celtics for the promising Clippers?

Simultaneously sensible and implausible.

It’s sensible in that Rivers has had misgivings about staying on in Boston even before he signed a new five-year deal in 2011, and he has plenty more reasons these days to wonder if his influence has gone stale compared to the difference he could make with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.

It’s implausible in that Rivers is indeed under contract for three more years, and it’s awfully hard to believe that stingy Clippers owner Donald Sterling will pay the $7 million wage that Rivers is rightly getting—besides whatever draft picks or prospects the Celtics would want in compensation. (And let’s bear in mind that Sterling’s judgment, mostly cloudy for so many years, included the recent forecast wherein he was the only one out of, well, basically everyone to believe in the idea of Vinny Del Negro continuing as Clippers head coach.)

What’s most interesting, though, is how the speculation of a Rivers-to-the-Clippers move is being viewed in the respective corners.

There is such a connection between the Celtics and their fans that it’s pretty much a deep personal insult that Rivers might try to bail. It is, frankly, a beautiful thing for a fanbase and an entire community to feel so special that it boggles their mind and stings their pride to think that someone would actually turn away from them.

We’re the Boston Celtics. Whaddaya think you’re doin’ here?!

For Clippers fans, who haven’t been given nearly so many reasons for faith, it’s totally different. Teams such as the Celtics have gotten so much over the years; when will it finally be the Clippers’ turn? Clippers fans have become accustomed to something missing, but now that they finally have the high-end roster talent to believe, they need the right coach to put it all together.

Rivers would be someone special, the rare combination of proven yet promising. Nothing else makes clear sense: Brian Shaw and Byron Scott are past Lakers champions, Alvin Gentry is a past Clippers failure, Lionel Hollins lost to Del Negro last season and Jeff Van Gundy and George Karl are balder than Mike Dunleavy was.

It’s rare that any coaching hire can be a clear savior situation, but Rivers with the Clippers qualifies—and Clippers fans know it.

Those fans saw through Del Negro, amazingly the only Clippers coach in franchise history to post a winning record except for the mysterious Larry Brown in 1992-93. And the Clippers have had plenty of credible names on their list, including two (Jack Ramsay and Bill Fitch) named among the NBA’s top 10 all-time coaches in a 1997 media vote.

It’s easy to imagine Paul being able to lead by his great example with a coach he believes in and the delicious frontcourt potential of Griffin and DeAndre Jordan being met. It’s also easy to imagine Rivers being intrigued by what would happen to those guys upon hearing his wisdom, especially when he knows that Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo have heard it all before.

What Rivers felt two years ago in signing that new contract doesn’t necessarily apply anymore. That doesn’t mean he deserves to skip out on the contract; it just means he, like plenty of regular people in regular jobs, is in a different place now than he was then.

Let’s bear in mind that in 2011, the Celtics weren’t far removed from pretty solid proof that a championship was reachable. They’d blown a 13-point lead in losing Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals to the Lakers (without injured Kendrick Perkins for the final two games), then they’d ruled the Eastern Conference most of the 2010-11 season before Shaquille O’Neal’s expected return from injury became a glaring absence in a playoff loss to Miami.

A great coach like Rivers knows when things are doable—and when they aren’t anymore. Odds are that’s where he’s at now

It’s enough even to try one’s loyalty to the mighty Celtics and make one wonder if a guy like Sterling is finally ready to get truly serious about winning with the Clippers.

The Clippers won 56 games this season, and the Celtics won 41. But why does the idea of Doc Rivers leaving the Celtics for the Clippers feel so intriguing?

Because he’d be leaving the haves for the have-nots.

And both sides know it.

Kevin Ding has been a sportswriter covering the NBA and Los Angeles Lakers for OCRegister.com since 1999. His column on Kobe Bryant and LeBron James was judged the No. 1 column of 2011 by the Pro Basketball Writers Association; his column on Jeremy Lin won second place in 2012.

Follow Kevin on Twitter @KevinDing.