Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers, the NBA’s winningest active coach and someone ranking sixth on the league’s all-time victory list, hinted Tuesday that he might consider giving up his role on the sideline when this tumultuous Bucks season ends.<\/p>\n
Rivers’ reason: grandkids.<\/p>\n
And put simply, he sounds like someone who wants to spent more time with them.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers\u00a0hinted Tuesday that he might consider giving up his role on the sideline when this tumultuous Bucks season ends
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His reason being his grandkids, who he said he’d like to spend more time with
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The 64-year-old Rivers is going into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame this summer
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Rivers joined the Bucks midway through the 2023-24 season<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t answer that, but I have grandkids that I want to see,\u201d Rivers told reporters when asked before the Bucks\u2019 game in Brooklyn about his future. \u201cI\u2019ll put it that way. I\u2019ll let you figure it out from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 64-year-old Rivers is going into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame this summer. Only Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley have more coaching wins than Rivers \u2014 who won the NBA title as a coach with Boston in 2008.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee came into the season with championship aspirations, built again around perennial All-Star and former MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and further bolstered by the acquisition of Myles Turner in free agency last summer. But injuries doomed Milwaukee; the Bucks started 8-5, then lost seven consecutive games to fall under .500 and that\u2019s where they stayed the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
They haven\u2019t been a top-eight team in the Eastern Conference since mid-November, wound up fielding trade offers for Antetokounmpo in February \u2014 ultimately deciding to keep him, at least for now \u2014 and now are embroiled in a war of words with their best player. He says he wants to play even though the Bucks are out of the playoff picture; the team has kept him out citing injuries.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo has appeared in 36 games this season, by far the fewest of his 13-year career. The constant speculation about his future in Milwaukee has grated on Rivers for some time, prompting him to say last week that it has been bothersome to incessantly have to deal with questions about the relationship between Antetokounmpo and the franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tough part about all this is I\u2019m in the middle when I have nothing to do with it,\u201d Rivers said Friday. \u201cCoaches don\u2019t decide any of this. But, the problem with our league is the coaches are the ones sitting out front and we have to sit here and answer this stuff. And I think there are two sides to this. I will tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo\u2019s future with the team is certain to be a major topic in the offseason. And now, Rivers\u2019 will be as well.<\/p>\n
He sounded somewhat reflective last week when formally announced as a Hall inductee.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout the players that I\u2019ve coached, without the coaches that I\u2019ve coached with, I wouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d Rivers said when announced as part of this year\u2019s Hall class. \u201cNone of us live in isolation. We all live and breathe with other people, and other people help us get to places we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivers joined the Bucks midway through the 2023-24 season. He has a number of interests outside of coaching, would likely be a sought-after broadcaster \u2014 he\u2019s done TV work before \u2014 if he steps down from coaching, and indicated that it\u2019s difficult to not be present around young grandchildren.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seven grandkids now, and they\u2019re all 8 years and under,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cAnd it kills me every time I miss grandparents\u2019 day with each one of them in school. And it\u2019s probably time to go see them more. So, I\u2019ll let you figure out the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers, the NBA’s winningest active coach and someone ranking sixth on the league’s all-time victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[41445,2722,2724,355,3,99,452,1745],"class_list":{"0":"post-571868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-wisconsin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}