Rivers named top coach

The vote came down to Doc Rivers and Phil Jackson. Rivers received 60 votes; Jackson 53.

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2000

ORLANDO -- Do not panic, Doc Rivers was telling himself. Don't get angry. Don't get upset. And above all, if you do, don't let the players see any of that. Things will get better.

[AP photo] Magic coach Doc Rivers, seated, gets a hug from point guard Darrell Armstrong.

It was mid-January, 2 1/2 months into his first season as an NBA coach, and things were not going well. The Magic, having momentarily recovered from a five-game losing streak with a victory over Vancouver, was in the midst of an eight-game slide.

"No, it was not easy," Rivers said. "That stretch is why we didn't make the playoffs. ... It was tough to go through it. But you learn more about yourself and your team than you do in the good times.

"What we got out of that stretch was that I didn't get upset, I didn't panic -- we didn't panic. We didn't change. I just kept believing in myself."

And his players' faith in him brought overachieving Orlando within two wins of edging the Milwaukee Bucks for a playoff berth. That in turn brought Rivers, lured out of a Turner Sports broadcast booth and signed to a four-year, $8-million contract, recognition Wednesday as NBA Coach of the Year. He's the first to win the Red Auerbach Award without leading his team to the playoffs.

"I would love to have been in Indiana, receiving this award," Rivers said. Milwaukee is playing the Pacers in the playoffs' first round. "But getting it is still nice. ... I didn't grow up wanting to be a coach. I don't think anyone does. You grow up wanting to be a player. Then you fall in love with the game, and at some point someone tells you you're not good enough for the game anymore, and you have to do something else. And if you still love the game, then you stay in it somehow."

The vote came down to Rivers and Phil Jackson, whose Lakers finished with a league-best 67-15 record. Rivers received 60 votes from the 121-member media panel, Jackson 53. "I was joking today that the only time I heard the Phil Jackson comparison was like, "Boy, he's no Phil Jackson.' Having said all that, I have a long way to go in coaching. I have a lot of work to do; I have a lot of learning to do. This award will not stop me from doing that."

Rivers also is the third coach to receive the award with a team that didn't finish with a winning record, and the fifth to win it in his rookie coaching season. He said last week he thought the award should have gone to Jackson. "I've always looked at wins as a measure," he said. "That's how I was measured as a player. I think that's how I should be measured as a coach as well."

Did he still feel that way now that the award was in his hands? "Not today," he said, laughing. "I've changed my mind. I was being diplomatic."

Point guard Darrell Armstrong, echoing his teammates' comments Wednesday, said they believed in Rivers because -- and it gets a little convoluted here -- they knew he could see a lot of himself in them, and Rivers knew they saw him as one of them. Rivers had, after all, parlayed moderate talent and limitless intensity into a 13-year NBA career.

"When you look at this game, everybody thinks about talent, about what kind of skills you have," Armstrong said. "Doc played hard every night. We're that type of player who plays hard every night. He taught us how to go out and leave it all on the floor, cause that's how he did it."

Said Rivers: "I saw some of me in them, there's no doubt about that. I love to watch guys just try to play. I always said as a player I'd pay to watch guys like that, and we have a bunch of them. Gym rats. Once you get a ball in your hands, you just can't stop playing. It got to the point that I had to threaten to fine them to get them out of the gym."

While Rivers was teaching them, he was learning patience, he said, something he rarely had as a player. "I had to learn to take a deep breath and relax because you have to think at all times. ... I had to be patient with the players, with the staff, with ... " he gave a loud laugh " ... with the referees." He has no doubt, he said, that in a lot of games this season the Magic came out on the short end of more than its share of whistles.

The Magic had four starters this season -- Armstrong, center John Amaechi, and forwards Ben Wallace and Bo Outlaw -- who weren't even drafted. The team also has three lottery picks in the draft and $18-million in available salary-cap money.

"We're not going to do as much as a lot of people think we're going to do" in the free-agent market, Rivers said. "We're going to do something; we want to get better as a team. That's part of this business."

But what of the team chemistry? Rivers talked often during the season about the Magic's formula for winning, the synthesis of the players, each with his own special properties to create a chemistry on the court.

Recalling a conversation he had in midseason with Magic vice president and former general manager Pat Williams, Rivers said: "You don't know how you get chemistry, sometimes you don't know when you get it, you don't know when it leaves, but you know when you have it, and you know you want to keep it. Of all the things (general manager) John Gabriel and I and everyone else want to do, it's to keep that chemistry. Over everything else, it's what makes teams tick."

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