Doc Rivers: ‘Losing DeAndre Jordan would have gnawed at me’

Upstairs in a spacious office, Doc Rivers sits, one of the few people not scrambling around the team’s basketball headquarters.

From the look of things, Doc Rivers doesn’t mind blatantly attempting to copy a portion of the on-court formula that helped catapult the Golden State Warriors to championship status.

Rivers, beginning his third season with the team, believes he has enough depth to get through all the pitfalls and obstacles that an 82-game National Basketball Association season can present – injuries, fatigue, even center DeAndre Jordan’s abysmal free-throw shooting.

The Clippers’ coach is ready to dive into his work, managing a team with more talent than it’s had the previous two seasons (and maybe more baggage, too). “A lot of the teams I’ve played on have been able to feed off that”. “We thought, this year, the pool of players you could go after was so much larger than the year before that we had a chance to accomplish our goal”. If we could somehow come up with five in the second unit where they literally could all bring the ball up, the versatility they create for that unit … Their bench is new and improved, with the additions of Josh Smith, Lance Stephenson, Pablo Progoli, Wesley Johnson and Paul Pierce, a 15-year veteran and 10-time All-Star who helped Rivers win a championship in Boston and is the only player on the roster with a ring. Blake Griffin further noted, “You have to earn that respect and I think we’re still in the process of earning that respect and we have to accomplish something”. I would’ve said, ‘F– that, we’re going to figure out a way to get this right.’ But it also triggered something else for me. “But we have to put it all together, and it’s on all of us to make sure that happens”. We wanted four (guys).

Here to talk about hoops, Griffin said his offseason workouts consisted of him getting better in every area, focusing on his all-around game.

When the Clippers meet for the start of training camp, Rivers will be sharing with them writer Greg Bishop’s cover story in Sports Illustrated on the Seattle Seahawks, about how a crushing end in the Super Bowl almost tore apart a franchise.