The BroadCast | Going One-On-One With New Sixers Head Coach Doc Rivers

a title. Once you win one, you need another one. Not for legacy. I can care less about that. Because you need another one, you just one another. That's my drive, That's what drives me, and that's what gets me up in the morning. On the day the Doc was formally introduced as the seventy sixers next head coach, we talked about a lot from grub Yeah, I think I'm be considered a foody to music. I'm a big Luther guy,

and I'm a huge Daddy V guy. But mostly his views on the team he's inheriting and his coaching philosophies accountability the word I like using over all those cooperation and when you get that buy in that's how you do it. On this episode of the broadcast, we go one on one with Doc Rivers. I am excited, really excited, pumped, stoked. I want the season to start right now. Gosh darn it. Doc Rivers is the next head coach of the Philadelphia seventy six ers, and I think the old hear over

the course of the next half hour. He's got a great vision for the franchise and just seems like an absolutely humble, grounded human being. And you can't have enough of those people around. I'm Brian Seltzer. Thank you very much for checking out this episode of the broadcast. Let

us get right to it. Doc Rivers was formally introduced as the seventy six ers head coach in a virtual press conference on Monday at the seventy six ers training Plex and Camden, and by the time I sat down with Doc later in the afternoon, he had already done about two and a half hours worth of talking basketball, whether in media interviews, his press conference with staff members executives, so before he and I jumped into discussing hoops, his

coaching philosophies, his outlook for the seventy six ers, I first wanted to ask him some icebreaker style get to know you type questions. If you're not coaching the basketball team or poring over your notes related to basketball, what are you interested in? What are some of the things you're trying to do well. If I'm not working, you know, if it's the off season, I'm golfing for sure, or traveling. I do like to travel, but I do travel to golf, so it's all related it. It's funny. I'm not that

good of a golfer. I just love to play golf, So that would be my answer. Why do you love it? It takes It's a great focus game. It is. I played during the season if I can, you know. If it's when I was in Boston, I had a hitting studio in my house to it just you have to focus to golf. And I thought it was great for me to get my mind off from my job because I do internalize my job, and so I think golf is the one thing that I have finally found to take my mind off of it, which I think is

very healthy. Have you ever golfed at any of the courses around here. I've golfed at a lot of the courses around here. Actually, it's it's been. It's really my reputation of liking golf does not match up in my ability to golf. And so when it was announced that I was coming here, I got calls from people friends that I've I've known here, or people from La connected me to people here. I've played Pine Valley, I've played Marion, I've played Manufacturers, I've played the Cricket Club. So yeah,

I've I've played. What's your handicap? I don't. I don't share my handicap. But it's good. It's it's it's it's a good handicap, tremendous. I feel like. One of the things I remember reading about when the articles came about how the Clippers were able to get Kauhai, you were at Nobu, and I wish that I could eat at restaurants like Nobu on the regular. But that got me wondering. Are you into food? Do you like? Yeah? I think

I would be considered a foodie. Um, you know some of my friends from Philly have already sent me a list of restaurants. Um, yeah, I am a foodie. Do you have any favorite types of food cuisines? You know I love sushi in different types of sushi. I love Spanish food. Actually, I love top Us Hyeah, and there's no American that doesn't need great Italian restaurants. So I got a feeling I'll do well here in that regard. Tell me about you, know, your your life with your family.

How much does family mean to you? Well, families of the world. You know, um my ex and I have still very good friends. I have four kids and they're the world. I'm a grandfather two times over. And Austin did his what is his ginger revealed thing yesterday and now I'm gonna have another grandson. So I have two grand boys, two grandsons, and one grand daughter. There is parenting is awesome. I have four kids, three boys, one girl.

The grand parenting is on another level. It is I tell you, there's nothing better than winning a game or even losing the game, and your daughter knowing that you're really happy or sad and she can see you a picture in your day changes. So that's been fantastic for me. Music or into music. You have music, Yeah, I don't have a favorite or a gamer. You know, I grew up I worked in a record store, a real record store.

You play forty five's and and albums, and you know, every every time someone walked in, you had to put the needle on and they had to listen to it for fifteen seconds. Young people have no idea what I'm talking about, but it was a great experience. Um and and I love jazz, h I love everything. I'm a big music guy. Every every game I play, I make a song list. Uh, and I play it going to every game. Really, can you give us us it? Maybe a sampling some of the artists, who oh my god,

I'll go oh, because I'm a big Luther guy. Uh. You know, it's funny. My players laugh at me because I'll play slow music sometimes in on the floor and they're like, we're going to sleep. I said, no, one's getting you. It's getting you what it needs to get you, you know. So and I'm a huge Teddy pe guy. So uh, he's a filly guy. That's right, That's right. So yeah, I'm a big music guy. You can never go wrong with some Luther and Teddy Pendergrass in your life.

That is a fact. Doc and I then shifted our chat to basketball and how in an amazingly swift and dramatic turn of events, he ended up his head coach of the seventy six ers after seven strong seasons with the La Clippers. Do you feel like you're running on oxygen right now if you had a task to catch your breath over the last seven days. No, I haven't caught my breath yet. You know, It's funny. I'm going so fast right now that I don't sleep. You know,

it can't sleep because your mind's on. You know, we got a lot of work to do, what we really do, and I'm a worker, and so right now I just feel like I have a lot to do, and so I'm just gonna work through it and then get my wrists. Well, what did you like viewing from the opposite sideline about the seventy six their size, their versatility. I think this team been what has been exactly? No one can tell you, Tobias, you see a three or four, Joel, you can blame

at the five? Can you play with the four? Can you go be again? You know it's skill set is of a five and a four int a three? Josh? What is he? You know? You go down the list and they have a lot of guys that are to me what I call ballers, and they don't really have a position. I love position list teams, and so that's that's the appeal for me, other than Joel is going to be your five, you know, other than that everyone

else is in flux. Can you walk me through the evolution of just kind of how things went like when you got the first call from the seventy six ers, when you heard from the just maybe thinking of this as like a narration of how a viewer a listener might hear the story of how this all came together. Yeah, so I get a call, I get released from the Clippers,

right and within six hours my agent calls. Actually, when I called my agent and tell him, he said, well, I have three teams that have express interest if this happens, would you like me to call them? And I said I'd rather take a day and just relax. And within four hours he calls me back, Well, they've already called and now they all want you to come down. And I won't say the team's names, obviously, but I asked if one of them was the seventy six ers and

he said yeah. I said, that's the one I want to take. Um, I want to come down and talk to them. They flew me down. I don't remember days, within forty eight hours and we met and you know, within another twenty four hours. We agree. I mean it was the quickest hiring firing hiring ever. So it's it's all good. Let's focus on the hiring part. Why do you think it came together that quickly? What were the factors? I think there are a lot of good factors. One

I wanted it, and and two they wanted me. You know, I think our discussion went great. You know, when I was very coming here, I didn't come here begging. I came here telling them what I saw, what I thought needed to be done for us to have a chance, and listen to what they saw. And I was very honest with him, and I said, if you don't see that vision, to be honest with me, because I don't want to come somewhere where you have a different vision.

I want to win. I have no I've coached long enough and I've won a title, right and once you win one, you need another one, just not for legacy. I can't care less about that because you need another one. You just want another one. And that's my drive, that's what drives me, that's what gets me up in the morning. Can you maybe putt in the terms for the light person what that feeling is like, like the itch, the

need to feel that experience again. The best feeling in the world winning It's the hardest thing you'll ever do, winning and the feeling of it is that not you did it, we did it. And when you reach that, there's no feeling in the world that that can copy. Watching young men cry jump around emotion because they know they did something extraordinary outside the box, and you want you want to go through that again. How do you make the wee happen? Oh gosh, you talk about it

every day. It's habits, you know, accountability every single day, discipline. The word I like using over all those is cooperation. When you have a group of players, ownership, staff, everyone has to cooperate from the trainer down and that one can't. And when you get that buy in, that's how you

do it. You just mentioned accountability. I was also probably very creepily lurking through your Twitter timeline and I saw a retweet from the author John Gordon, who I actually think that some of the employees with the seventy six there's an HBSc. When we first got here. We have to read some of these leadership books, and I think we read the ones that you tweeted about. Is he

really Yeah? We go to dinner a lot, we share thoughts a lot, Yeah, and he's got some really poignant ones and ones about culture, about like the most important part of your job as a leader is to drive the culture. So it sounds like accountability is one thing. What are some of the other things that make up the goods of culture? Consistency? You know, you need you need that. You have to have consistent habits every day to drive culture. And the biggest thing that I think

people miss is care. People like, why am I going to buy into a culture that doesn't care for me? And so you have to prove to them first. You have to love them first before they're going to love you back. And I think that's the most important part. Why did you realize that? I mean, is that something that like when you were playing? Has that always been a part of you or I wish I had have known that as a player, I tell I think late in my career playing for pat Riley and listening to

him talk, I always thought I had bought in. I really did. As a player, I always thought, man, I'm a player that had bought in, and then when you played from pat Riley, he asked for more. Uh. And when you buy into that, you realize you really never bought in in the past. And once you do that, you understand what that looks like. Um, it sounds like pat Riley's a name that you could put on a list of people who have inspired you or influenced you.

Who are some other people it could be within basketball outside of parents. Obviously, my dad was a cop, you know, uh in Chicago. You know, he was in the era of community cops. You know. He was the basketball coach, football coach, baseball coach. People would bring people by just so he could sit and talk to him about life, you know, he was. He was very important in the community I grew in. UH. And my mom is was

my favorite. I mean she was very religious as similar line worker, you know, but she had this thing him both about no victims. You know, you're never going to be a victim. I don't care what they did, just keep keep it going. He was a big believer and keep it moving. I could you couldn't. You just could not come in and blame something in my household wasn't gonna happen. It was your fault because it happened. Now move on. That was my parents. But then I had

great coaching. I had Larry Brown as a coach, Mike Ritzello as a coach, Rick Magaris and now McGuire. I'm the luckiest player to play because I never I always played for great coaching, and I think all that stuff is what probably formed my thoughts and that have all some of these influences inspire and inform docs visions for

the Sixers. Understandably, having just accepted the gig a few days earlier and not having had a whole lot of time to dive deep into personnel and film, he didn't want to make any hard fast commitments when we spoke, but he did have some initial thoughts, and we began by looking at the franchises two Cornerstone All Stars Joel Ebad and Ben Simmons, who last February when the Clippers were in town, Doc likened to the lakers former Hall of Fame tandem of Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Magic Johnson.

I feel like I heard some people bring this up with you already, about the comments you made about Ben and Joel and the Magic and Kareem semi comparison. You know, I did it for because it was more about who they are as as as far as personality, Like I thought, imagine Kareem. You couldn't pick two more different human beings.

Kareem rarely spoke, you know, very quiet, very analytical player in some ways, did not want to play fast break, wanted to walk the ball up the floor, wanted you to wait for him and then got down you throw it to him. And then you have Magic who wanted to fly down the floor, who had personality and joy and smile and wanted to play at a fast pace through behind the backback. I mean they were You couldn't have had two more opposite players that fit perfect. And

that's the point. That's why I made it. Yuh oh, No, you can be completely opposite games and you could absolutely fit. And that was that was what I was the point I was trying to make it, and I'll admit it. Two. When I was listening to the introductory press conference, you have like I didn't think of Ben and Joel in terms of all when they played together they win sixty

five percent of their games. I mean, maybe sometimes it's just that simple Obviously there's a lot of more layers to it, but it's that simple in some ways, like we we we we started dissecting these guys to the point where we forget what they do. Great. You have two guys that whenever they play together when sixty five percent of the games and all you hear about is what they don't do. Uh, And that's insane to me.

You can score one hundred and thirty five points in the game and all you hear about is that Ben didn't take a three. I thought that the idea was to score a lot of points as a team, and I didn't know that they were style points. You know that if certain this guy had this many points. I don't care how we score. I just know we need to and so that's my focus with this team. You and Joel went to Basketball Without Borders together a few

years ago. How did you guys? What was that? Basketball without pas out borders is something every person that is involved in NBA needs to find time to do. It was life changing. It's amazing to go watching Joel over there and just all the African born players over there. Uh. That part was amazing, the love that they get. But more important importantly, it's this country that wants to find their way through basketball. It was it was really powerful.

I actually ran a play by Joel. You know, my brain is on a lot too much, as my coaches would say, and I was watching these kids play and I saw somebody do something. I grab Joel say, hey, I want to try something out. I want to what do you think if we did this in a game. He started looking at me laughing, and that was really my first time meeting him. That's gonna be the craziest thing as a head coach, because you have to think, even if you're on the other side, well, what if

I ever got a chance to work with this guy? Right, you think it all the time. What if I get a chance to coach this guy? Or even that you just see, men, this guy can do this. You know what if he did this? You know it never turns off. How much have you even been able to start to think about stylistic things on the court, offensively, defensively and what you see a lot? You know I have because I had to think about taking the job. But that's

where it stops. So I've watched a little film. I will admit to that probably the only one is watching film right now. But other than that, I'm not sure yet how we're gonna play. I just know I have goal now that offensive defensive goals. I think we're nineteenth in offense last year. We can't be that, and when I think, we have to be in the top seven and how we get there is what we have to do next. Just as I'm curious when you watch film do you look at Are you a good tape guy?

Do you like to watch good tape bad taper? Stuff in between? Well, in golf, I like to watch my bad swings. In basketball, I'd like to watch both. I love watching good in basketball because it shows me what they're capable of, but bad because it shows me their habits, tobias. You referenced him earlier. What do you think worked when he was in LA with you guys? He put up some terrific numbers. I gave freedom number one. I'm a big believer in freedom, because with freedom comes from actually more.

You're more accountable to your teammates. If I'm going to give you the freedom, then you can't lose that by taking bad shots and playing the wrong way. I think I also, I thought I really got him to unsaid who he was what he was, and once he bought into that, it was easy for him to play free because he knew his shots, his way, and we allowed

him to do it. Have you it sounds like you've kept in touch with him a little bit, but have you followed what he's been doing off the court since he left you guys, Not to suggest that he didn't do it in previous stops, but at least here with us, we've seen front and center how he's really taken leadership by the horn. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I didn't know if he was a leader or not because we had such a transient team. I guess it would be the best way because people were going in and out

of the door. But I know he wanted to be, and so that's the start. I'd love to hear that another leader within the seventy sixers organization, Elton brand and hiring Doc Rivers marked the culmination of his first coaching search. It's hard to argue with the outcome as Brandon the Sixers were able to land the second winningest active head coach in the NBA. Brandon Rivers cross paths a handful of time times as players and coach, respectively on opposite sidelines,

but now they're together, entering into a pivotal partnership. Something I spoke to Elton about was he said to me, I'm probably gonna butcher this story, but he remembered when he was playing at some point during his career, like he was passing by you on the sideline and you said, like lighting up, or like have some fun or something like that. Um, tell me in your words, what relationship did you get them up? A relationship with Alton when I don't know Elton well until you know, we're getting

to know each other. But that's a true story of watching them on the floor, and he just looked so mad. And you know, it was late in my career and I was just starting to coach, and I was like, enjoy it, man, that I it's a great game. I do think we lose light of that. You know, I see our players now not having fun. I gotta tell you, competing as a player, there's there's nothing better. There's nothing better than a hard, just nasty, fought out game of competition.

I don't even call it basketball. I call it a game of competition. And um, you know, to the victors goes to spoils and and if you know that while you're in the competition, you'll play harder. The symbolism of black general manager, black head coach. What does that mean to you? Means a lot? Um. You know when I when I leave this place, um, and decide to go off to some far away golf course. Um. My goal is to be said that Elton brand is the best gem in sports. That's my goal. Why is that? I

think it's important I do It's I take it seriously. Um. We don't have a lot of black gems or black front office people. Um. And if he's successful, then someone else can be. Uh he's successful, then uh, we'll have a woman. It's a gym. Uh didn't We gotta just take away the fear of that. Um. And So I'm I really want helping to do well. I think it's my job to help him and I'm going to try

to do that. Give us a sense. I know that you said you haven't been able to dive too deep into XS and o's yet, But do you have a timeline in mind by like, let's say next week, I want to be here and by the end of the month, I want to be there. That's a good question. I want to have my coaching staff in place. That's gonna

be hard. That means Elton is going to be on the call talking to agents and that's not anything I would suggest do, But so that would be my first goal is to get the staff in place by Friday. I would have talked to probably by tomorrow. I want to have at least talk to everybody by phone. And then my next step is I'm gonna start flying around where these guys are. I've already talked to Al about going to Atlanta. That's where he lives in the off season.

Just sitting out at the dinner table, man talking basketball, talking vision. I think they have to see a vision, and my job is to show them that vision. Two things to follow up on their first reaching out to players in the immediate See now, I mean, obviously we're in such a different world for so many different reasons. But in this COVID distance world that we're in, I mean, I figure, in a normal world, maybe you'd have a full roster here to welcome you on your first day.

So what do you do now? It is harder. You know, the normal world. First of all, we would have had the big media scrum, but the player stuff is harder. You know. The two things that are harder right now that I have seen already taking a new job is due to COVID, everyone's gone, you know, and you have to find them. And I think that's that's that's very hard, and also due to COVID. Um, it's it's you don't

know when the season starts. Uh, that's very difficult for a player and a coach to know when they ramp it up. And to circle back on your assistance in general, what do you look for in the staff. You've had some great assistance over the here. Um. I always say my staff, you have to be a fighter to be in my staff. If you or somebody who's telling me what I want to hear, it's not going to work

with my staff. I want live debate. I do. And it's funny every time I bring in a new coach, they're very uncomfortable with it because I'm gonna challenge you. I'm going to disagree with you sometimes when I think you're right, I just think I need guys to tell me the truth. So whatever the date or general range of time is, let's imagine a great world in which You've got twenty thousand people in South Philadelphia. You've played

in that environment, you've coached that environment. You get to where your guys want to go, Like, what do you what do you hope to bring this fan base? Consistent? Play, hard play, team play. There's nothing better for a fan. Then when you walk out on the floor, you say, dang, they play together, man, they play hard, man, they play together. If you can get that, you're in great ship. Get any of the fans getting your mentions on Twitter? I know you're on there. Did you check the mentions? Oliver?

They it's funny. I am the worst Twitter user ever. And Instagram, you know, I got on my daughter works at CIA. She told me I needed to get on. I don't check anything. I mainly got on because I wanted to start creating social you know, education, and so I use it for that now. I actually i'll post something every once in a while. But as far as the mentions, the what's it likes, I think they are and I don't even know how you find those things because I don't one thing I don't do. I won't

read any of the comments. I think that's a very healthy and I've heard that's very healthy, vital, valuable life insights from Doc Rivers that we should all internalize, apply and practice. Stay out of the mentions. But I'm the type of guy who cannot do as I say, and I go into the ventions. But it has seemed like for the last twenty four or forty eight hours, even going back to last week, the vibes are all good, really positive. People are excited to have Doc Rivers as

the next head coach of the Sixers. And it's just one guy's opinion right here, but after listening to him talk for about thirty minutes on life, basketball and other such things, it is hard not to feel that way. Just a really exciting time for the Sixers to have someone of Doc rivers caliber and level of accomplishment in

the fold as head coach. We're gonna have more reaction to the hiring of Doc Rivers on the seventy Sixers podcast network Feed in the days ahead, stay tuned for a conversation with Elton Brand, the man who was able to get Doc Rivers here to Philadelphia. And also we're going to have our Vote seventy six mini series. We have registration deadlines fast approaching within the local Delaware Valley

area in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. So our hope is that some of these conversations shed light on resources you can use heading into the registration deadlines and of course, the November third election. I'm Brian Seltzer talked next Time You See It