Doc Rivers says role with Clippers ‘hasn’t changed much’ since demotion

It has been roughly a year since Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer announced that Doc Rivers will no longer be serving as president of basketball operations for the team in addition to head coach, but Rivers insists not a whole lot has changed since then.

Rivers spoke with Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald over the weekend about the rebuilding process the Clippers are facing. While Doc used to basically be in charge of all roster decisions, Lawrence Frank is now at the top of that ladder. Despite the change in title, Rivers says his role remains similar.

“I’m still doing basically the same stuff,” he said. “It’s interesting. I don’t think my role has changed since I’ve been there. When I first came, I was just the coach, but I was involved in every decision. Then I was the president, and I was involved in every decision. Now I’m the coach and whatever other title I have — I have another title, but I don’t even know what that is — but I’m still involved in every decision, so it really hasn’t changed much.

“My workload has changed some though. It’s less now, and that’s good. Before this last title change, I was hiring different people so I didn’t have to do everything, and that was the intent.”

Rivers got mocked quite a bit on Twitter when the Clippers decided to trade his own son now that he is no longer making roster decisions, but the veteran coach has a good sense of humor about it.

“If Austin goes to Washington and scores 50, I’m blaming everybody else,” Rivers joked.

With Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan all out of the picture, things clearly didn’t go the way Rivers hoped they would when he left the Boston Celtics to take over in L.A. Given how loaded the Western Conference is, it will probably only get tougher from here.