Los Angeles Clippers

No executive did a better job of constructing a team for the 2019-20 NBA season than Los Angeles Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank.

The 2019-20 NBA Basketball Executive of the Year is Lawrence Frank, President of Basketball Operations for the @LAClippers! #NBAAwards pic.twitter.com/uql4pIdZEm

— NBA (@NBA) October 8, 2020

Frank was named the 2019-20 NBA Executive of the Year on Thursday, beating out a strong field of contenders that included Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti, Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst, Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri and Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka.

Here are the exec of the year voting results. Execs around the league are the voters pic.twitter.com/68IcJpJQ2L

— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) October 8, 2020

On July 21, the NBA announced voting for awards would take place from July 21-28 and not take into account the eight seeding games the 22 teams invited to the restart plan in Walt Disney World Resort played.

That meant team records before the season was suspended on March 11 because of the COVID-19 pandemic were solid indicators of which executives did the best job of building their squads to compete.

That Presti's team was in the thick of the playoff race in the daunting Western Conference at 40-24 is an indication of his ability to revamp on the fly, which he did when Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors following the 2015-16 campaign and again during the past offseason.

He traded Paul George to the Clippers for Danilo Gallinari and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a deal that also included draft-pick compensation. He then traded Russell Westbrook—the face of the Thunder organization—to the Houston Rockets for Chris Paul in a deal that included draft-pick compensation.

Rather than focusing entirely on the future, OKC meshed with Paul as the veteran leader alongside a future star in Gilgeous-Alexander and someone who took on a larger scoring role in Gallinari.

Horst did less revamping with a Milwaukee team that reached the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals.

Still, the 2018-19 Executive of the Year traded Malcolm Brogdon to the Indiana Pacers, re-signed Brook Lopez, George Hill and Khris Middleton, and signed Robin Lopez, Kyle Korver and Wesley Matthews.

The result was a dominant group that fit in alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and had the league's best record at 53-12 before the season was suspended.

The Raptors were right behind the Bucks with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference at 46-18, underscoring Ujiri's ability to keep his team competitive even after Kawhi Leonard left to join the Clippers.

Toronto signed Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam, who played major roles in last season's championship alongside Leonard, to extensions and remained on the shortlist of realistic championship contenders in 2019-20.

The Lakers were on that list of championship contenders as well with the best record in the Western Conference at 49-14 when play was paused.

Pelinka's ability to trade for Anthony Davis and build a supporting cast around the big man and LeBron James by signing Danny Green, Dwight Howard, Avery Bradley, JaVale McGee and Quinn Cook, among others, was a major reason for the success.

While trading for Davis seemed like an obvious move to make, the Lakers had to mortgage some of the future they built with Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and Lonzo Ball in the move. Pelinka weighed that decision and ultimately made one that put the Lakers in the playoffs for the first time since the 2012-13 campaign.

The Lakers weren't the only title contenders in Los Angeles, as Frank made some of the most impactful moves of the offseason by signing Leonard and trading for George.

The result was a Clippers team that was 44-20 when play was suspended, which was the second-best mark in the West. They suddenly had two superstars to go with a talented supporting cast that included Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, Landry Shamet and more.

All of these executives made a number of important decisions, but it was Frank who took home the award.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden quoted Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers while making a campaign speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, per ESPN.

"Doc Rivers, the basketball coach, choking back tears when he said, 'We're the ones getting killed. We're the ones getting shot. We've been hung. It's amazing how we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back.'

"I think about that. I think about what it takes for a Black person to love America. That is a deep love for this country that has for far too long never been recognized."

Lincoln University journalism professor Jay Scott Smith tweeted video of Biden's comments:

Here’s the clip of @JoeBiden quoting @DocRivers during his speech in Gettysburg today. It was, in all honesty, pretty powerful. pic.twitter.com/S7fDQjI3l9

— Jay Scott Smith (@JayScottSmith) October 6, 2020

Biden's remarks were in reference to Rivers' comments to reporters on Aug. 25, two days after the Kenosha, Wisconsin, police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man.

Rivers, 58, was named as the 76ers' head coach on Oct. 3, five days after he parted ways with the Los Angeles Clippers.

He played in the NBA from 1983 to 1995 with the Atlanta Hawks, Clippers, New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs and has been an NBA head coach for the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics, Clippers and 76ers.

Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham is reportedly set to interview with the Los Angeles Clippers about their head coaching vacancy this week.

ESPN's Malika Andrews reported Tuesday that Ham is scheduled to meet with both the Clippers and Indiana Pacers in the coming days.

Ham, a former NBA forward from 1996 to 2005, has served on the Bucks staff under Mike Budenholzer since 2018. He previously served as an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks and has head coaching experience with the New Mexico Thunderbirds in the G League.

The 47-year-old Texas Tech product won an NBA championship as a player with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He appeared in 22 games during that year's playoff run.

In June, he credited Budenholzer for allowing him to fill a wide-ranging role that's helped him develop as a coach during an appearance on the Truth and Basketball with George Karl podcast (via Christian Clark of the New Orleans Advocate).

"Coach Bud has allowed me to have a voice, he's allowed me to grow, he's allowed me responsibility," Ham said. "And we do everything. I do player development. I do game plans. I scout for some of the biggest teams I have to prepare our team for. So it's a situation that's favorable, and he's allowed me to be me."

He's far from the only candidate for the Clippers vacancy, which has been most frequently linked to Tyronn Lue, a Clips assistant and the former head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The 2016 title-winning coach has had widespread interest from the New Orleans Pelicans and Houston Rockets, per Marc Stein of the New York Times.

ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Golden State Warriors assistant Mike Brown, a former head coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers, is another candidate.

Whoever the Clippers hire to replace Doc Rivers, who has since signed on to coach the Philadelphia 76ers, will face immediate pressure to push the star-studded roster, led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, to a championship.

They fell short of that goal during the 2020 playoffs, blowing a 3-1 series lead against the Denver Nuggets in the conference semifinals and getting eliminated.

The Los Angeles Clippers are reportedly leaning toward naming Tyronn Lue as their next head coach. 

Per Marc Stein of the New York Times, Lue is considered the "early favorite" to take over from Doc Rivers

Since Rivers and the Clippers parted ways on Sept. 28, Lue has been considered the front-runner to replace him. 

ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Wednesday that the Clippers will conduct a full search, but Lue "is in a strong position" to be named head coach. 

Wojnarowski also noted the New Orleans Pelicans are expected to meet with Lue about their coaching vacancy. 

The Clippers allowed Rivers to walk away after a disappointing postseason exit. They finished the regular season as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference with a 49-23 record but lost to the Denver Nuggets in the second round after blowing a 3-1 series lead. 

Los Angeles remains in prime position to compete for a championship. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George will lead a deep and talented roster into next season. 

Lue has experience working with Leonard and George after serving as an assistant coach on Rivers' staff in 2019-20. The 43-year-old spent parts of four seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2015-19. He went 128-83 with one championship in three straight NBA Finals appearances from 2016-18. 

Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were reportedly asked for their input before Los Angeles Clippers governor Steve Ballmer made the decision to part ways with head coach Doc Rivers on Monday.

According to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne and Ohm Youngmisuk, Ballmer called "several key players," including Leonard and George, in order to get their opinions. The report noted nothing Leonard or George told Ballmer changed his mind and that the decision to fire Rivers was Ballmer's alone.

On Monday, Ballmer referred to Rivers' departure as a "mutual decision" following a disappointing finish to the 2019-20 season.

The Clippers finished as the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference with a 49-23 record, but they were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets after blowing a 3-1 series lead.

Expectations were high for the Clippers this season after the signing of Leonard and the acquisition of George from the Oklahoma City Thunder. Anything short of a trip to the Western Conference Finals was going to be considered a failure.

Compounding the disappointing postseason ouster was the fact that the rival Los Angeles Lakers not only reached the Western Conference Finals but also made it to the NBA Finals by virtue of their series win over the same Nuggets team that eliminated the Clippers.

On Tuesday, ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski appeared on Get Up! and reported that Ballmer wanted to make a "dramatic change" rather than standing pat with a team that didn't get the job done. Parting with a coach of Rivers' caliber fits the bill.

With a career coaching record of 943-681 with 16 playoff appearances over 21 combined seasons with the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics and Clippers, Rivers is widely considered one of the best coaches of his era.

When adding in two NBA Finals appearances and a championship as head coach of the Celtics, Rivers is a potential Hall of Famer.

A new voice in the head coaching role may be needed, however, and the Clippers may be able to find the perfect candidate in-house.

Wojnarowski said that Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue is in a "very strong position" to succeed Rivers given his experience working with Leonard and George, plus his championship pedigree.

In parts of four seasons as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Lue reached the NBA Finals three times and won a championship in 2016.

The Clippers need someone who can get them over the hump, as the franchise has never gotten as far as the conference finals, and Lue may be the perfect guy for the job given what he was able to do with LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Co. in Cleveland.

In the wake of Doc Rivers' departure from the Los Angeles Clippers, the 58-year-old reportedly had difficulty managing the team's roster after Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were acquired last summer. 

Per The Athletic's Jovan Buha, outside observers felt that Rivers was unable "to manage the demands of adhering to his new stars, Leonard and George, while simultaneously sustaining the cooperation from the old guard of the roster—mainly Williams, Harrell and Patrick Beverley." 

Buha also noted that the Clippers were comfortable parting ways with Rivers for a number of reasons: 

"The organization ultimately determined that the locker room, as currently constructed, lacked the requisite leadership and mettle to be true a championship team. Players weren’t necessarily put in the best position to unlock a better version of themselves, either, with the team not always making appropriate or timely adjustments, league sources said."

There were several criticisms directed toward Rivers during the Clippers' postseason run, including some from within the organization. 

Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported on the issues players had with Rivers' coaching after the Clippers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets:

"Rivers had several strategic decisions that left players scratching their heads, such as the decision not to ride a bigger lineup against Nikola Jokic, choosing rotations that did not prioritize more minutes for JaMychal Green and various defensive adjustments. The team also never came together in terms of chemistry or camaraderie inside the bubble."

The reported issues date back before the playoffs, with Buha noting Kawhi Leonard expressed his unhappiness with being benched late in the first half during a Feb. 11 game against the Philadelphia 76ers:

"As Leonard walked toward the Clippers’ bench, he demonstrably gestured towards Rivers, yelling 'There’s 12 seconds left! We’re down two!' while throwing up his arms in disappointment at the decision to bench him so late in the half.

"An outward display of emotion like that was rare from Leonard. Before Leonard could sit down, Rivers retracted his decision and instead subbed out Lou Williams.

"Williams, who was setting up on the left block to come off of a Harrell screen, sauntered off the floor, pausing for a second to throw his arms up at Rivers to display his displeasure."

Despite the issues behind the scenes, the Clippers were able to finish with the second-best record in the Western Conference during the regular season (49-23). They had flashes of becoming a playoff juggernaut, as evidenced by their 154-111 win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the first-round series. 

Things looked to be on track in the Western Conference semifinals when the Clippers took a 3-1 series lead over the Denver Nuggets, but they proceeded to lose three straight despite holding double-digit leads in each of those games. 

Rivers did post winning records in each of his seven seasons and six playoff appearances as Clippers head coach, but the team never advanced past the second round of the playoffs.

As the conference semifinals unfolded in the 2020 NBA playoffs, some questioned why former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers continued to lean on Montrezl Harrell. The issue appears to have arisen internally as well.

"A common criticism from some within the team — inside and outside the locker room — was that Harrell's energy and effort was only consistent on the offensive end of the floor, multiple league sources said," The Athletic's Jovan Buha reported. "Meanwhile, Rivers maintained, publicly to the media and privately to his staff and the organization, that Harrell was the better player, in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary."

Harrell was a microcosm of what led the Clippers to fall apart and blow a 3-1 lead over the Denver Nuggets.

During the regular season, the 26-year-old averaged 18.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.1 blocks en route to winning Sixth Man of the Year.

Harrell missed all eight of Los Angeles' seeding games due to the death of his grandmother. Perhaps as a result of this layoff, his performance in the postseason suffered. He averaged 10.5 points, 2.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks. On-off ratings aren't a definitive indicator as to a player's value. Still, it's telling that the Clippers were minus-11.6 per 100 possessions with Harrell on the floor and plus-15.6 when he was on the bench, per NBA.com.

There are always those that will try to make it more complicated and make the situation appear worse than it is.

They were up 3-1 and in control of Game 5. Doc didn't adjust to a supremely-gifted opponent in order to put them away.

In Game 7, the team shot 8/27 on open threes.

— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) September 29, 2020

Los Angeles was much better when leaning on Ivica Zubac (plus-17.7 net rating) at the 5, yet Rivers continued to stick with Harrell as Nikola Jokic toasted the Clippers frontcourt.

This isn't the first time Harrell was referenced in a story detailing how everything unraveled, either. Yahoo Sports' Chris Haynes reported he had a brief argument with Paul George on the bench during Game 2 after George tried to blame him for a turnover on a pass into the post:

"Harrell responded with something along the lines of, 'You're always right. Nobody can tell you nothing,' and expletives were uttered from both players, sources said. George eventually toned down his rhetoric, but a heated Harrell wasn't having it. Teammates began clapping on the sideline, in part to disguise what was going on and in an attempt to defuse the situation. The incident deescalated shortly after as coach Doc Rivers took his seat to go over the game plan."

This leaves the Clippers with a bit of a conundrum as Harrell hits free agency.

Perhaps L.A. needs to move on from the 6'7" center because he isn't a good fit with the current roster. The problem is that finding an adequate replacement would be difficult with limited salary-cap space. ESPN's Bobby Marks floated Nerlens Noel, Aron Baynes and Bismack Biyombo as options.

The Athletic's Shams Charania reported Sept. 21 the Clippers and Harrell were interested in reuniting but that he's likely to have interested suitors elsewhere.

Re-signing Harrell and figuring out a way to make him work better in a postseason rotation might be preferable to letting him walk and looking to fill his roster spot.

Ty Lue is reportedly set to receive strong consideration to replace Doc Rivers as head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers.

ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski said the following about the Clippers assistant on Tuesday's episode of Get Up:

"At the top of the list right now is Ty Lue, who was Doc Rivers' top assistant this past year. Won a championship obviously in Cleveland. Went to the Finals multiple times. Made a great impression in Los Angeles with that group this year. There's relationships with those players and a coach who kind of checks all the boxes, potentially, for the Clippers.

"Has been in the media spotlight, understands the glare of that, having coached LeBron [James] in Cleveland. Tactically very strong, a tough leader. He's a coach who's not afraid of confrontation. He showed that in Cleveland ... It is not his job now. There's going to be a search, but I would say he's in a very strong position right now. He's going to get a very close look from [President of Basketball Operations] Lawrence Frank, [governor] Steve Ballmer, their management and ownership."

The Clippers announced Monday they parted ways with Rivers in what was a "mutual decision." Despite essentially entering the season as the co-favorites in the Western Conference with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Clippers were eliminated by the Denver Nuggets in the second round of the playoffs after blowing a 3-1 series lead.

After signing Kawhi Leonard in free agency and acquiring Paul George from the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Clippers went 49-23 during the regular season, good for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference behind only the Lakers.

The Clippers and Lakers seemed to be on an all-L.A. collision course in the Western Conference Finals, but the Clips allowed Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Co. to win three straight games, resulting in their shocking exit from the playoffs.

One of the biggest storylines entering the 2019-20 season was the fact that the Clippers had never gotten as far as the Western Conference Finals, so their failure to do so again this season necessitated a change.

Although the final decision regarding Rivers' successor hasn't been made, Lue makes sense on multiple levels, including the fact that he was on the staff this season and has experience working with Leonard and George.

Lue also went 128-83 with three NBA Finals appearances in parts of four seasons with the Cavs.

He led Cleveland to a championship in 2016 and then brought the team back to the Finals the next two seasons. After LeBron left to sign with the Lakers in free agency, Lue went 0-6 to start the 2018-19 season and was subsequently fired by the Cavaliers.

Lue has shown that he knows how to coach and manage the personalities of superstar players. He also took a franchise that had never won a title to championship glory, which is something he'd be tasked with doing in L.A. as well.

Additionally, the 43-year-old Lue spent 11 seasons as an NBA player and won two championships with the Lakers during that time, so it shouldn't be difficult for him to earn the respect of the players.

All signs point to Lue being the ideal candidate, but with no date officially set for the start of the 2020-21 season, the Clippers have some time before they need to make a hire.

Los Angeles Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer reportedly sought "dramatic change" after the team's elimination in the Western Conference Semifinals, which led to the "mutual decision" of Doc Rivers' vacating his role as head coach Monday.

ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Tuesday on Get Up the Clips' postseason collapse at the hands of the Denver Nuggets was the main reason for Rivers' departure.

"Blowing a 3-1 lead to Denver in the conference semifinals," Woj said. "Not as simple as that, but this is an owner, Steve Ballmer, this is a win-now team, certainly, with the Clippers. He was not willing to just run this thing back next year without some dramatic change, and that started with Doc Rivers yesterday."

Rivers compiled a strong 356-208 regular-season record (.631 winning percentage) across seven years as the Clippers' head coach. The team couldn't match that performance in the playoffs, going 27-32 (.458) and failing to advance beyond the conference semifinals.

This year's exit stung a little more for a couple of reasons.

First, L.A. held the 3-1 advantage over Denver and led by 12 points at halftime in Game 5 and 16 points at halftime in Game 6 before blowing both leads.

Second, the Clippers spent all season hearing about a likely showdown with the rival Los Angeles Lakers in the conference finals. They then watched as LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Co. breezed past the Nuggets in five games to reach the Finals, where they'll meet the Miami Heat.

Rivers posted a statement on Twitter about his departure:

https://twitter.com/DocRivers/status/1310693712524120067

Now the question becomes who will replace the former Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics coach, who won a title with the C's in 2008.

Vincent Frank of Sportsnaut reported four early contenders to fill the vacancy:

• Clippers assistant Tyronn Lue
• Lakers assistant Jason Kidd
• Former Warriors head coach Mark Jackson
• Former Rockets head coach Mike D'Antoni

Regardless of who's hired, Ballmer is clearly setting championship-or-bust expectations with the tandem of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George in place for at least one more season. Both superstars have a player option in their contract following the 2020-21 season.

Meanwhile, Rivers is likely to draw immediate interest as a coaching free agent.

The Rockets, Pacers, Pelicans, Thunder and 76ers are the other teams looking for a new head coach.

Few things in the NBA are truly shocking, but the Los Angeles Clippers' decision to part ways with head coach Doc Rivers on Monday afternoon was a rare exception.

Even after the Clippers blew a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Semifinals, nobody saw this coming. Most figured the coach who ushered the franchise through 2014's Donald Sterling scandal, made the playoffs in six of his seven seasons and helped bring relevance to the most irrelevant organization in the league would be as close to untouchable as any coach not named Gregg Popovich or Erik Spoelstra.

The timing was odd. It's been almost two weeks since the Clippers lost Game 7 to Denver, and there wasn't a peep that Rivers' exit was even on the table. As ESPN.com's Adrian Wojnarowski reported Monday, Rivers has two years remaining on his contract, and they aren't cheap—his $11 million annual salary is one of the highest for a head coach in the NBA.

The team's official announcement called it a "mutual decision," but, for what it's worth, Rivers thanked Clippers Nation and not the Clippers organization or team governor Steve Ballmer in the statement he posted to his Twitter account. Draw your own conclusions there.

Was Rivers' seven-year tenure with the Clippers a success? It depends on how you measure it.

Rivers came to the Clippers in 2013 after nine seasons with the Boston Celtics, which included two trips to the Finals and an NBA title in 2008. With a blossoming Big Three of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan already in place, the belief at the time was that upgrading from Vinny Del Negro to Rivers would be the move that transformed the Clippers into true contenders for the first time in franchise history.

By those expectations, Rivers came up short. His Clippers never made the Finals, let alone won a title. He didn't even get them to the Western Conference Finals, despite leading 3-1 in the second round in 2015 against Houston and this season against Denver.

Most of the Clippers' early playoff exits can be explained away by injuries or other extenuating circumstances; the two indefensible ones are the two blown 3-1 leads. His best coaching job was the 2018-19 season, when he led a young group with no All-Stars and no playoff expectations to the eighth seed in the Western Conference and unexpectedly took the Golden State Warriors to six games in the first round.

Ultimately, Rivers won three playoff series in seven seasons with rosters in five of those years that were expected to contend. There's no way to spin that as anything other than a massive disappointment.

But Rivers' impact on the Clippers cannot purely be measured by on-court results. He brought stability and credibility to an organization that had previously had none.

When he was looking to move on from Boston following the breakup of the Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen-Paul Pierce Big Three, he likely could have had any job he wanted. He chose the Clippers because they offered the most upside with Paul and Griffin locked in. That the Clippers could even get a coach of Rivers' stature, and were willing to pay for one, changed their perception around the league.

During the 2014 playoffs, when TMZ published a leaked recording of then-governor Sterling making racist comments, it was Rivers that held the organization together through the fallout. He was the one addressing reporters every day about a controversy he had no part in creating. He was the one keeping his players united (they considered boycotting Game 4 of their first-round series with the Warriors in response to the Sterling tape). He was the one attempting to keep up the morale of employees throughout the organization.

The Clippers needed a reliable, trustworthy public face as they reached one of the lowest points any pro sports franchise has ever reached. Rivers proved up to that job, and then some. A lesser coach—a lesser leader, really—might have mishandled it, or taken the opportunity to jump off the sinking ship. Rivers didn't. And when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling for life and the league facilitated the sale of the Clippers to Ballmer, there was no talk of the new team governor bringing in a new coach. Rivers had proved he was someone you wanted representing your organization.

When Rivers joined the Clippers in 2013, he was given the dual titles of head coach and senior vice president of basketball operations. After he was promoted to president of basketball operations in 2014, that status as the most powerful person in the organization below the ownership level gave him the gravitas to lead the team through the Sterling debacle.

The downside: He wasn't a very good GM.

As an executive, Rivers tended to fall back on what he knew, signing past-their-prime veterans he had either coached (Pierce, Glen Davis, Brandon Bass) or coached against (Matt Barnes, Hedo Turkoglu, Stephen Jackson) in Boston. When the Clippers needed fresh bodies in the playoffs those years, they never had the depth to compete. Any discussion of Rivers' playoff shortcomings with the Clippers must include the role his own front-office decision-making played in putting those teams together.

It's no coincidence that in the summer of 2017, when Ballmer removed Rivers' front-office responsibilities so he could focus solely on coaching, the Clippers' rosters started to make much more sense. The payoff was that 2018-19 run, led by Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell and rookie point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Rivers' responsibilities would have been spread too thin to coach that group to its full potential if he still had his front-office job, and Lawrence Frank and Michael Winger were more than capable of building him a quality roster.

This was the latest chapter in Ballmer's long-term quest to transform the Clippers into a destination, a true competitor to the Lakers, and it appeared to work last summer when Kawhi Leonard signed with them in free agency, bringing Paul George with him via a blockbuster trade.

The fact that a superstar the Lakers were also pursuing chose the Clippers is a testament to just how far the organization had come in the years since Sterling's ouster. And Rivers was a huge part of that.

He's also been one of the NBA's most prominent and trusted voices on social justice in the Orlando bubble. He's taken on a role as a leader in this area, just as he did in moving the Clippers past the Sterling days.

It's troubling but worth noting that after his exit, along with the firings earlier this summer of the Indiana Pacers' Nate McMillan and New Orleans Pelicans' Alvin Gentry, there are only four Black head coaches remaining in the NBA: the Phoenix Suns' Monty Williams, Atlanta Hawks' Lloyd Pierce, Cleveland Cavaliers' JB Bickerstaff and Detroit Pistons Dwane Casey. With more scrutiny (rightly) on diversity across the sports world, the sudden departure of the NBA's longest-tenured and most respected Black coach is not good.

With Rivers gone, it's unclear where the Clippers will go to find his successor. The logical move would seem to be elevating his top assistant, Tyronn Lue, a championship coach in his own right who's been linked to all of the highest-profile openings this year.

Rivers will be fine. He'll get another job as soon as he wants one (less than an hour after news broke of his breakup with the Clippers, The Undefeated's Marc J. Spears reported that the Pelicans and Philadelphia 76ers have already reached out). If he wants a break from coaching, he could easily go back to his old job as a television analyst, which he was excellent at.

Whatever Rivers decides to do next, he'll have supporters in all corners of the basketball world. The Clippers' disappointing playoff record during his time there is a big part of his story, but he represents so much more.

     

Sean Highkin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon and lives in Portland. His work has been honored by the Pro Basketball Writers' Association. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and in the B/R App.