LOS ANGELES – Tyronn Lue got his start as a head coach thanks to Doc Rivers, which is why the current LA Clippers coach always considers facing the former coach a special moment. With the Sixers in town, it was another unique moment for Lue to face his mentor.
Following four days in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia 76ers came into Crypto.com Arena on a Friday night and smacked the Clippers, 122-97. It was Doc Rivers' first game against the Clippers in Los Angeles with a crowd on hand to spectate and it was also his first win in Los Angeles since joining the Sixers franchise. Coming into the game, Lue was excited from a competitive standpoint to take on the guy who helped spark his career.
“It’s competitive friendly for me,” Tyronn Lue said of Doc Rivers. “My mentor who’s taught me a lot and gave me my first opportunity. Just seeing him on the sidelines — it’s kind of different when you’re going against him, kind of like when I was with the Lakers and then went to the Wizards and came in in the visiting locker room. It didn’t feel right, but it just it’s good to be the first person who really started his coaching tree.”
Doc Rivers spoke shortly after Tyronn Lue did, and took a bit of a different approach to facing his mentee. While Lue said it's competitive yet different to face Rivers, Doc flat out said he actually hates playing against Lue and his former assistant coaches.
“I hate going up against Ty [Lue], Monty [Williams] and all my guys you have a relationship with,” Doc Rivers responded before Clippers-Sixers tipped off. “It's actually no fun. It's fun when you win, but it's different — especially with Ty. Ty was with me Boston and every practice and everything, he has my complete playbook, so, it's fun though, but it is different. It's funny, it's so different coaching than — like, when you play against your best friend, you want to destroy him. It's amazing the difference, and when you coach against a guy, it's just a different vibe.”
Tyronn Lue doesn't become a head coach without the mentorship and willingness of Doc Rivers. back in the offseason of 2009, Lue joined the Boston Celtics’ training camp roster for the 2009-10 season, but ultimately didn’t make the opening day roster. According to both Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau and Doc Rivers, the Celtics tried to find ways to keep Lue around, and ultimately created a spot for him as an assistant coach.
“I did tell him after training camp. I don’t know what I saw. I just saw that I thought he was going to be a helluva coach. I walked up him to said, ‘hey, the day you finish, give me a call and you have a job. You are going to be a coach. I believe that.' He didn’t at the time. I can tell you that. He laughed at it. He said he was going to do TV or whatever, I don’t know what he thought he was going to do.
“But then when he called, it would be nice if he called in the summer. He called in the middle of the season and we didn’t even have a spot. Thank God to Danny Ainge. I called Danny and said, hey listen, I promised the guy, let’s do it and we did it and now the rest is history.”
If the Clippers can somehow get healthy and get their trio of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Norman Powell back, a potential Tyronn Lue-Doc Rivers showdown in the NBA Finals wouldn't be out of the equation.
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