Doc Rivers' reputation as a head coach feels pretty secure, but his tenure pulling double duty as the Los Angeles Clippers president of basketball operations has been the subject of plenty of scrutiny.
The Clippers' core was in place when Rivers arrived and the personnel moves he's made since accepting the dual role in 2013 have been geared towards filling in the margins.
A number of those moves have flopped, most recently his decision to give up on Jared Dudley – a heady two-way wing the Clippers could badly use – and his use of the mid-level exception on center Spencer Hawes, who has somehow been usurped on the depth chart by Big Baby Davis.
The team wound up paper-thin and defensively vulnerable, and Doc's midseason acquisition of his son, former New Orleans Pelicans shooting guard Austin Rivers, didn't seem like a step towards addressing either of those issues. It was roundly criticized as a show of either incompetence, nepotism or both.
"There's a whole bench, but Austin's always the piñata," Doc told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports. "The thing I don't like is that guys use that name to get hits. It's so cheap. And I hate that. All the way back, that always pissed me off. Guys writing about him just because it's going to get hits. For that, I feel for him. It makes me think sometimes I wish I wasn't the dad in this case."
For one game, at least, the critics had to bite their tongues. With the Clippers down 2-1 to the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs and facing a Game 4 on the road, Austin came through with the biggest performance of his pro career.
In 17 minutes off the bench, he scored 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting. For once, the Clippers' reserves actually outplayed those of the notoriously deep Spurs, helping the team level the series at two games apiece.
After the game, Doc walked into the locker room where his son was being loudly cheered by his teammates.
"For a moment, for a half second maybe, I became a dad in there," Doc said, adding that tears welled in his eyes before he quickly wiped them away.
"Listen, we haven't been together a lot," he said, referring to the nine years he spent coaching the Boston Celtics while his wife and children lived in Orlando (where Doc's NBA coaching career began). "In a lot of ways, I am his coach."
Austin, meanwhile, tried to downplay the significance of his performance.
"Nah, man, we didn't win a championship," he said. "This is something I know I can do."
Now the rest of the world knows, too. Austin may not want to make a big deal of it, but his dad has fewer reservations.
"It was pretty cool," said Doc.
