Doc Rivers explained why he took Celtics’ job after initial resistance, how they landed Kevin Garnett in podcast with former C’s stars
Rivers also told Garnett and Paul Pierce how he was quickly proven wrong about the Celtics' decision to add Rajon Rondo.
Doc Rivers initially didn’t want to coach the Celtics, but the persistence of Danny Ainge and the front office along with a mutual admiration for a draft prospect led him to change his mind.
In an interview with former Celtics stars Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce on “KG: Certified,” Rivers shared how Ainge surprised him when the Celtics were recruiting him during the 2004 offseason.
“I was going to turn down the Celtics job because I had just left Orlando, I wanted a year,” Rivers recalled. “Danny calls me and says, ‘Hey, can we talk?’ And I said, ‘Yeah’, I said, ‘When?’ [He said] ‘Now.’ I said, ‘What do you mean now?’ He said, ‘Look outside your window.’
“Danny just flew all the owners up to Orlando without asking me. He’s ringing the doorbell. So he comes in, and we’re sitting there and sitting there, I’m like, ‘The hell.’ It’s a boss move. It was cool.”
Once Ainge and the rest of the Celtics’ contingent met, the discussion went toward the upcoming NBA Draft. Rivers expressed admiration for a future Celtics draft pick, who was also a favorite of Ainge’s.
“We’re sitting there, and we’re talking about college players,” added Doc. “I said, ‘I’ll tell you the guy I love, kid at Oklahoma State, Tony Allen.’ And the owners start laughing because Danny just said that. And that made me say, ‘Oh, man, we’re connected.’
“That’s a true story. Because Tony was wild, tough. … I was like, ‘This is my guy, man’. It was so cool because some teams wouldn’t have seen that. And I was like, ‘We can get this dude’. And we were right.”
Allen, who was in the room with Rivers, Pierce, and Garnett as the interview was going on, was selected by the Celtics with the No. 25 overall pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, which was the third selection Boston made in that draft after Al Jefferson and Delonte West.
Rivers’s story about taking the Celtics job came after he discussed the draft process and selecting players. Rivers said that he always “covered” for Ainge even if he thought he made a bad draft pick, saying you’d never see a story of Rivers saying wanted the Celtics to select a different player.
One of the prospects that Rivers initially didn’t see eye-to-eye with Ainge was Rajon Rondo. Ahead of Rondo’s rookie season in 2006-07, Rivers said Ainge wanted him to evaluate the point guard’s tape.
“I looked at it like, ‘He can’t play. This guy can’t play,'” Rivers recalled. “[That’s what I said] when I first saw Rondo. I kept looking and you start seeing it. Then I called all the coaches at Kentucky, the report wasn’t very good about Rondo.
“So, I’m worried. Danny said, ‘You trust me?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we got it.’ Two days into camp, I was like, ‘Oh man, we got a steal.’ But no one knew that. Danny never said, ‘Hey, I always wanted him.'”
The Celtics technically didn’t draft Rondo, but they acquired him shortly after the 2006 NBA Draft after he was selected by the Suns with the No. 21 overall pick.
A year after the Celtics drafted Rondo, they had their biggest offseason in decades and arguably the most important in franchise history. But Rivers explained that acquiring both Garnett and Ray Allen nearly didn’t happen.
Garnett’s initial rebuking to join the Celtics caused Boston to trade for Allen during the 2007 NBA Draft, moving the No. 5 overall pick and other pieces to acquire the Hall of Fame shooting guard.
Garnett changed his mind on wanting to come to Boston shortly after, leading Rivers to joke that “the best thing you did for us was say, ‘no'” as it allowed the Celtics the opportunity to land two Hall of Famers that offseason.
But they still had to get a trade done. Rivers said that when he was in a golf cart with then-Timberwolves general manager Kevin McHale, he had a good feeling they would be able to land Garnett, sharing what McHale told him.
“”Doc, you know what I want? Whoever is the youngest, best big man in the league. That’s all I need. If we can get that, then I just figure [the rest] out.’ I was like, ‘Oh, we’re getting Kevin Garnett,’ because we had Al [Jefferson], and Al was the best young big man in the league at the time,” Rivers said. “So, when he said that, I remember driving the golf cart like, ‘We’re getting all three guys.’ That’s what I was thinking.
“I told Danny, ‘We’re getting him.’ He was like, ‘Who do we give up?’ I said, ‘Send them a list, tell them to name them.’ We had a list of guys you couldn’t touch.”
That list of untouchable players included Kendrick Perkins, Tony Allen, and Rajon Rondo. Garnett revealed that he actually had a list of which players he wanted to remain on the Celtics as well, which included those three players. He had a particular interest in playing with Perkins.
“I was like, every time I played Perk, we would get into it so much,” Garnett said. “What I didn’t know was that I was a big bro without being a big bro. I didn’t know the big fella [was also drafted] out of high school. I didn’t know none of this.”
So, the Celtics traded Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, and two first-round picks for Garnett. Shortly after the trade, Garnett said he called Perkins to make sure both sides were cool with each other.
“I wanted to get an understanding with him before I came in here because whatever we had to get out of the way, let’s get it out of the way,” Garnett remembered of his conversation with Perkins. “I want you to know that I’m a different type of teammate. That’s what I was selling.”
The conversation and trade, along with Ainge’s recruitment of Rivers plus the draft picks of Allen and Rondo, all worked out in the end for Boston, winning the NBA title in 2008.
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