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Austin Rivers on Clipper life as the coach's kid: 'I haven’t had it easy'
Austin Rivers wasn’t much of an NBA punchline until he was dealt to the Los Angeles Clippers midway through his third season in the league. Since then, things have been a little rough for his image.
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The Clippers, since the summer of 2013, have been run by Austin’s father Doc. Doc Rivers works as coach and president of the club, with the final say on all basketball moves. To mostly muted acclaim; though in his defense Doc’s hands are mostly tied when it comes to improving upon this capped-out roster.
As a third guard with the Clippers, Rivers has averaged 8.2 points and two assists in 20.9 minutes a game over a season and a half, and though he has enjoyed some highlights his turn with the team hasn’t been strong enough to completely distance he and his father from sneering charges of nepotism.
Entering his fifth NBA season, via Dan Woike of the Orange County Register, Rivers would like to remind that he’s made his own NBA fortune, thank you very much. And that Austin has spent just 23 months of a comparatively long basketball career working for his famous father:
“I haven’t played for him my whole life, so it’s not like I had it easy. The whole rest of my career – when I was still successful – the No. 1 player in high school, one of the top five, top 10 players in college at Duke. I wasn’t with my father. I haven’t had it easy.”
Woike, prior to this, poked the snake a bit in referencing the chunkiest perception of Austin Rivers, NBA Player:
And for people who think he stayed because he’s had it easier playing for his father? Well, Austin politely disagreed.
“It’s the complete opposite. People who think that are (expletive) idiots. It actually gets me angry,” he said. “You can say it. ‘People are idiots.’ You can write that one down.”
Good for Dan Woike for writing it down, and good for Austin Rivers for going on record.
Austin Rivers was a lottery pick, and while he may have been a bit of a missed lottery pick at No. 10 back in 2012, few back during that draft were carping about the then-New Orleans Hornets wasting the selection at the time. The two guards selected soon after Rivers – Jeremy Lamb at No. 12 and Kendall Marshall at 13 – have struggled to make a dent in the NBA as well. Marshall is currently out of the league, and Lamb is a year removed from being dealt for the retiring Luke Ridnour.
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Rivers remains on the fringes, which wouldn’t raise many hackles were it not for the guaranteed two and then three-year deals he signed with the Clippers both during the 2015 and 2016 offseasons. The last contract, signed after Rivers opted-out of the second year of his two-year deal, will pay him $35 million over the next three years. Provided, of course, the 24-year old doesn’t opt out of this deal following 2017-18.
It remains to be seen whether or not Doc Rivers, working as Clippers coach and personnel el jefe, will last that long. What is likely is that Austin Rivers, even given the sustaining of his current, underwhelming levels of production, could find NBA employment past the length of a deal that could last through 2018-19. He, like so many others who have found lasting employment in this league (Calbert Cheaney and Jeff Green come to mind) just looks like an NBA player out there.
For now, starting with the Clippers’ season opener against the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday, the onus will be on Austin to further separate his game from the smirks. It certainly can’t be easy to be viewed as Austin Rivers has been, since being traded to Los Angeles in early 2015, but one can certainly understand why the doubts of the observers would set in.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
