Doc Rivers and Bill Simmons brought us a bit of rare, unscripted entertainment on Thursday night when they engaged in some verbal sparring on live television during ESPN’s coverage the NBA Draft. Rivers was asked about Simmons’ assertion that he quit on the Boston Celtics, to which Doc responded that Simmons is an idiot who doesn’t know the whole story.
Rivers elaborated on Friday during an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show.”
“They wanted to unload contracts for draft picks,” he explained. “I happened to be one of those contracts. This is a direct quote from an owner: ‘This is a win-win for us. If we can get get a pick for you and you have a chance to go to a team like the Clippers and continue to pursue winning and we can get to rebuilding.’
“That’s exactly what happened last night. Clearly, I had a selfish motive. I had a chance to not rebuild and go to a team that is in a different phase of their franchise. I hope I benefitted from it, but this was done together. This was not me walking into the Celtics and saying ‘I quit’ or anything like that.”
[Related: Doc Rivers’ son rips into Bill Simmons on Twitter]
Rivers and Simmons clearly have some sort of history together, and Doc referenced that when discussing the Thursday night exchange. He also said he felt Simmons should have let it go.
“Bill’s a fan,” Rivers said. “Is he qualified to do the NBA? Well, we can debate that all day. But Bill’s a fan, and I get that. He’s not a friend of mine or a fan of mine and he never has been. I rarely respond, you know that. I don’t do it very often but I just kind of had enough of that. I thought it kind of ruined the broadcast last night because he kept bringing it up. It was almost like he had an agenda.”
The blog world certainly doesn’t think it took away from the broadcast, because it’s all everyone has been talking about. Rivers is right that it probably took some attention away from the draft picks, but the exchange made for great television. People want more of it.
Thanks to Black Sports Online for the video
