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It is no secret that L.A. Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was not 100 percent behind the team's decision to ship off his son, Austin Rivers, this summer to the Washington Wizards. The 56-year-old coach recently spoke about the difficulties he underwent in parting ways with his own flesh and blood.
The patriarch of the Rivers family claims that he had mixed emotions about the deal that broke up the father-and-son combination in L.A.
“It wasn’t difficult in the fact that I think he is going to a great place,” Rivers told Keith Pearson of the Boston Herald. “It’s just difficult in the fact there’s nothing in a manual that says how to trade your own son. At least I haven’t read that coach’s manual.”
Doc was being brutally honest here. Being a veteran coach with 19 full seasons under his belt (on top of 12 playing years in the league), he has seen pretty much everything in the association. Nevertheless, this did not make trading away his own son any easier.
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Doc was also thankful to Austin for making the transition much more manageable for both parties. This time around, it was the son who was imparting words of wisdom to his father.
“Austin made it so much easier with how he handled it and what he said. He said at the end of the day, we did something that had never been done — a dad got an opportunity to coach his son in the NBA. Who would have dreamt that? I’ve had that opportunity.”
Doc will be entering his sixth season with the Clippers. However, his team is ushering in a new post-Lob City era, and there will be no shortage of challenges in the years ahead.
For his part, Austin is on the last year of his contract and will surely use the upcoming season to try and up his stock as he enters free agency next summer.
