Doc Rivers To Have Throat Surgery

"Celtics coach Doc Rivers will have surgery today to remove a noncancerous growth from his throat, a team spokesman confirmed. The procedure comes seven months after Rivers had a biopsy to determine if lesions on his throat were cancerous. The results of those tests came back negative (Boston.com)."

I guess Rivers has family history of throat cancer, so it is great news that this isn't anything more serious. I do wonder if this had anything to do with him never having a voice. I know he yells a lot during the game, but it got to the point where he could barely talk. Hopefully everything goes well, and maybe we will be able to understand him better later in the games.

Interesting Interview With Doc Rivers

As DP wrote about earlier Doc has signed a 5 year deal with the Celtics, which was shocking. He was on WEEI today, and I found some of the things he was talking about very interesting.

On Big Baby's poor play..

"I thought it was more in between his ears than his play. I thought the whole contract thing affected his play. I thought he had the wrong focus at times because of that. I think when you stray away from just being a team player and being the role that you're given, I think you struggle. I think all players do. And I thought Baby did that.

"I thought scoring was way too important to him, instead of being who he is. Baby's never going to be a great scorer in our league, but he can score. What Baby has to be is an energy player, a guy who takes charges. Yeah, if we get him for the right price," he said. "I think it would be nice, but we can't overpay. That will be up to Danny and Wyc [Grousbeck] and them. That's one of the things I stay out of, at least I try to. We've got to get him back in the right frame of mind. And that's the way he was the last 20 games. Baby's a good basketball player. He can help us or any other team. But, to me, only if he plays the right way (WEEI)."

Listening to it Doc seemed pissed at Big Baby. He was very loyal to him, and gave him the minutes, but in the end Big Baby just never came around. We have written many times that their were reports that Big Baby got fat. Doc was asked about it, and he said that he didn't know, but that it seemed pretty obvious from just looking at him that he had put on weight. All of this to me means he is gone. If Big Baby didn't have the concentration to keep his weight in check during his contract year (probably the most important year of his career) then I don't think he is worth investing in. Plus, guys with his body type don't last long in the NBA.

On being part of the rebuilding process...

"I don't think anyone's looking forward to that, but I'm willing to do that," he said. "I had a group that has been very loyal to me. I think it would have been very easy for me to just run and go somewhere else and chase something else. It would have been easier to do it the other way; I just don't think it's the right thing to do. Coaches talk about loyalty and team all the time. I just thought it was time to show it. And that's what I did (WEEI)."

Very interesting. I was wondering why he came back, and maybe he felt that the "Big 3" gave him so much that he should be the one that rides this process out with them. I also think this "showing loyalty" plays into the long term. KG/Allen are in their last year, and if he remains loyal to them this could be a stepping stone to attracting more free agents. Doc is already one of the most beloved coaches in the NBA, and showing that you are loyal (even through the bad times) could go a long way to bringing in a big time free agent (Howard, Paul, ect). I think the Celtics have enough to make a decent run next year if they sign good guys next year, while also not crushing their future. They can sign a bunch of 1 year contracts, and then have the cap room and core (Rondo, Pierce, maybe Green).

Doc Rivers Agrees To Extension

This happened last Friday but still worth mentioning. Doc Rivers decided to go crazy and instead of retiring he signed a 5 year, 35 million dollar contract.

It's kind of crazy that this happened because he was willing to walk away after last year and I felt like he had to be convinced to come back. So I feel that most Celtics fans believed he was a definite goner this year. But something changed, I don't know what but something did and he is going to be here not only next year but throughout the whole rebuilding process once the big 3 are over.

This is really exciting news figuring Doc Rivers is arguably the best coach in the NBA and he's not going to stick around unless Danny at least makes this team relevant. It's going to be pretty funny when Doc Rivers is going to coach against his own son when he leaves Duke.

My Thought On The Celtics

Last night sucked...

It sucked not only because the Miami Heat and LeBron beat us, but it could be the end of an era. The Big 3 had their run and it may be time that the Lakers and Celtics hand the ball off to the young kids and let them run with it for a bit. But I don't think it's as gloom as people are making it out to be.

After the game we got some great news from Doc:
"I'm leaning heavily toward coming back," said Rivers. "I haven't made that decision, but I can tell you, I probably will. I've kind of come to that over the last couple of weeks. You know I'm a Celtic and I love our guys. And I want to win again here. I'm competitive as hell and I have a competitive group."

I'm going to trust him on his word that he's going to be back so the dominoes are starting to fall.

The second thing is Rajon won't have a flamingo arm and be able to play with both hands. People will overlook his ineffectiveness due to the arm when they talk about this series, but mark my words, if we had a healthy Rondo we would have won game 4 and we certainly would have won last night. We didn't score in the last 4 and a half minutes. He is the catalyst for this offense puts all the players in the position they need to be in to have the shot or drive they need. Him not being 100% was completely evident on how important he is to this team.

The turnover, I don't expect to see Troy Murphy, Sasha Pavlovic, Jermaine O'Neal, Shaq, Carlos Arroyo, Von Wafer and Glen Davis back. I would do everything in my power to bring Delonte back on a short term contract and go from there. Jeff Green will be back next year for around 5 million so we have something to work with. I don' know what is going to happen with the CBA, but getting into that already is too much to think about so I'm not going to get into it.

Kendrick Perkins trade time. Anyone who believes Perkins would have made a damn difference in this series is a fool. I'm sick of hearing about toughness and what have you, we have Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo we have enough of that. Perkins was a fan favorite and a guy I was saddened to see go, I feel like I lost a family member, but it would have made no difference. Everyone is making him out to be Kendrick Abdul Jabar and forget that he wouldn't have played in the final quarter in any of the games, he couldn't score and was a decent rebounder at best. I'm not trying to bash Perkins but him main objective every game was to take up room and have a scowl on his face. People's response will be, "well if we had Perkins the outcome wouldn't have been any worse" True, but we still would have lost the series.

The last thing is the Danny factor. Danny needs to have a better off season because the most underrated move that happened last summer was Chris Wallace scooping up Tony Allen. If Tony Allen was still on this team we wouldn't have had to move for a forward and everything would be status quo. Bob said it true last night, we would have been better off with Rasheed Wallace and Tony Allen. I don't know who will be a free agent, what the CBA will bring and what trades can be made, I just know Danny will need to do something drastic.