The Philadelphia 76ers have moved on from Doc Rivers after three seasons on the job following another second-round exit. Rivers was 154-82 in three seasons in Philadelphia, but he was not able to lead the Sixers out of the second round in any of those seasons.
It isn’t necessarily his fault. In 2021, they had to deal with Ben Simmons passing up a critical dunk late in the Game 7 loss to the Atlanta Hawks. In 2022, James Harden and Joel Embiid were dealing with injuries. In 2023, Harden and Embiid weren’t able to deliver in Game 7.
However, that’s just the nature of the business and the coach will get the blame most of the time. Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra gave his thoughts on the Sixers moving on from Rivers:
It’s disturbing. Doc’s a Hall of Famer. That’s what Andy (Elisburg) always says, too, you get past the first round, there’s gonna be some really good teams. Great players, great organizations, great coaching staff. They’re going to lose just by the nature of this beast. There are only so many teams that can advance. It’s just a really hard thing to do. Yeah, it’s been a tough couple of weeks hearing the news of some just really surprising firings.
Spoelstra is right about the firings around the league. It’s understandable because it’s the way this business goes. The coach is always the first one to go when things go wrong, but Rivers did a lot of great things for the Sixers during his time here.
The same goes for the likes of Mike Budenholzer with the Milwaukee Bucks and Monty Williams with the Phoenix Suns. Those two, like Rivers, did a lot of great things for the teams they coached. It’s hard to win in this league, but it will be interesting to see how Philadelphia handles its coaching search to replace Rivers.
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Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire