Whenever a coach is fired during the first month of the NBA season, there's more than merely winning and losing going on behind the scenes.
Orlando firing Doc Rivers after the Magic lost in Utah on Monday night was about more than just the team's staggering 1-10 record.
 | |
| Doc Rivers can't overcome the Magic's roster limitations, leading to his firing after four-plus seasons. (AP) |
That's not to say Rivers didn't deserve to be fired, or to say he is a great coach.
Yes, Rivers, 42, is a very bright basketball man and was brilliant enough in public relations to earn coach of the year honors in a season the Magic were .500 and didn't even make the playoffs.
But, like Rivers, this franchise has been running on fumes, smoke, mirrors and young superstar Tracy McGrady.
Period.
Ever since the 1998-99 lockout, the bottom has been falling out of the franchise. The DeVos family that owns the Magic, under the weight of knowing no new arena was coming, began trying -- unsuccessfully -- to sell the team.
Knowing full well they were struggling to compete in this young city with Mickey, Minnie and anything else that brought amusement, Magic general manager John Gabriel went out on a limb to sign McGrady and Grant Hill to maximum, seven-year, $93 million contracts in the summer of 2000.
It was a gamble on McGrady, supremely talented, but very young and unproven.
It was a bigger gamble on Hill, a superstar who had just had surgery on a badly broken ankle.
Gabriel was named executive of the year for those moves.
Little did anyone know, that would be the foreshadowing of a fractured franchise and lead to the executing of Rivers as coach.
Rivers, loaded with personality and well-liked from his playing days, was wildly popular from the moment he was hired. Often an open book to the media, he won the coach of the year award in his first season with a 41-41 record.
But Hill played all of 14 games the next season -- his first with the Magic -- perhaps underestimating how dominant McGrady was in this whole process. Ultimately, Hill played just 47 games for Rivers (out of a possible 328 by the end of this season) after four different surgical procedures on the ankle.
With a team crippled by two enormous salaries, one of which was non-functional, the team never improved despite McGrady's giant step into superstardom.
Consequently, the Magic have been a very ordinary 171-168 -- 5-10 in the playoffs -- during the Rivers era. Never getting out of the first round wasn't an issue as much as their lack of improvement.
As Gabriel and chief operating officer John Weisbrod tagged along on the current five-game road trip into the depths of the rugged Western Conference, Rivers never had a chance.
What were they going to learn? That the signing of aging Juwan Howard to a multiyear contract was a folly considering he plays the same position as overrated second-year forward Drew Gooden?
Are they just now finding out they don't have a real center or enough perimeter shooting?
Here's a clue ... the blunder of signing Howard was only exceeded by the expectation free agent Tyronn Lue would solve their point-guard woes.
It is true Rivers didn't do much to the offensive structure to alleviate all of the pressure on McGrady, but if Gabriel didn't do anything personnel-wise to help, whose fault is that?
In the end, there is no doubt Rivers is culpable for a good portion of this sudden turn of events, but certainly no more than Gabriel or anyone else in the decision-making process of the Magic.
And don't cry for Rivers. He'll get another job soon enough, perhaps before this season ends -- maybe in New York if the Knicks continue to wobble. And while we're at it, to comprehend why assistant Dave Wohl was fired, too, leaves us only to believe his allegiance to Rivers did him in.
Good luck to interim coach Johnny Davis to sort through this mess.
What we're left with is: Not only has Hill's orthopedic surgeon been unable to restore stability to the ankle of the fallen superstar, but it will take more than one surgical procedure to heal this fractured franchise as well.
