This topic contains 3 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by I NO NOTHING 12 years, 10 months ago.
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- Posted on: Fri, 05/13/2011 - 3:35pm #28916
JJeff6Participanthttp://www.nba.com/2011/news/05/13/rivers-extension/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt2
Aldridge: Rivers’ new contract worth $35 million
By David Aldridge, TNT analyst
Posted May 13 2011 4:31PMThe Boston Celtics are paying top dollar to retain Doc Rivers, with industry sources saying that Rivers’ new five-year contract will be worth about $35 million, which would make him the NBA’s highest-paid head coach beginning next season.
Rivers will officially sign the multi-year extension that’s been worked out with the team next Monday or Tuesday, according to a source, and is hoping to spend the remainder of his coaching career in Boston, where he’s been since 2004, and where he won an NBA championship in 2008 and made the Finals last season. The move means the Celtics, who lost in the second round of the playoffs to Miami, likely won’t make drastic personnel changes for next season, though they are likely to try and add a couple of new pieces to their aging roster and provide help for the Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.
Rivers said after Boston’s Game 5 loss in Miami Wednesday that he was "leaning heavily" toward staying next season, and that decision never wavered in the last 48 hours since he’s had time to think about it and speak further with family members.
Rivers, according to the source, has been strongly influenced by the career arc of former Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who spent his last 21 head coaching seasons in Salt Lake City before abruptly resigning last Feburary, and wants to remain the coach in Boston after the run of Pierce, Garnett and Allen is over. He has formed a very strong bond with Celtics president Danny Ainge, who hired Rivers and stuck with him when the team won 33 and 24 games from 2005 to 2007.
Negotiations between Rivers’s agent, Lonnie Cooper, and the Celtics began in earnest about three weeks ago, as Boston began the playoffs against the Knicks in the first round — "Doc didn’t want any distractions during the season," said a source directly involved in the discussions. And the talks moved quickly toward a new deal that would be higher in average salary than the Knicks’ Mike D’Antoni (entering the last year of his four-year, $24 million deal). The Lakers’ Phil Jackson was paid $10 million this season, which he says was his final one coaching in Los Angeles.
"Doc has always known that we’ve wanted him and that offer was on the table," Ainge told Boston reporters Friday. "I would say that, early in the playoffs, as the playoffs first started, we started that conversation again. He understood it was important for me to know what he wanted to do, because [the offseason] is a long process and there’s a lot of things going on in the summer. He spent some time with his family and made his decision a little earlier this time."
Rivers did not drive up his asking price by having his named linked to other job offers — most notably, the Lakers’ now-vacant head coach spot. Rivers had been longed rumored to be the Heat’s top choice if management or ownership ever felt that Erik Spoelstra was not up to the job, but Miami’s run to the Eastern Conference finals — beating Boston in the process — has quieted all such talk about Spoelstra’s job status for the foreseeable future.
Nor did Rivers ask for excused absences in his new deal to go see his son Austin, a high school all-America guard who will play at Duke next season. In recent years Rivers has often traveled on Celtics off days to see his sons play in high school in Florida, where his family resides during the NBA season, but he always got back to where Boston was playing, home or road, in time for the next game. "He has always worked around the Celtics’ schedule," a source involved in the discussions said Friday.
Good deal for Celtics? I would say so.
0 - Posted on: Fri, 05/13/2011 - 3:39pm #531445
BKKnicksfanParticipantGreat deal for Boston, any coach with a title under his belt should be paid well. With Rivers in place, I hope he’s more hands on with the personal on the roster.
0 - Posted on: Fri, 05/13/2011 - 6:09pm #531472
akhan786ParticipantI also like this move, because hopefully his son Austin Rivers will get to play against him before Doc retires.
0 - Posted on: Sat, 05/14/2011 - 5:24am #531531
I NO NOTHINGParticipantIf outlol can get 35 million WHY cant doc rivers!
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