Doc Rivers on LeBron’s sacrifice, his new NBC role, and one regret over his Giannis comments

The 76ers take on the Boston Celtics Tuesday in South Philly (8 p.m., NBC, NBC Sports Philadelphia), and Doc Rivers has a distinctive perspective on the historic rivalry.

Rivers, who works as a color analyst for NBC, is one of just three people to have been the head coach of both the Sixers and Celtics (Chris Ford and Jim O’Brien are the others).

“The league is always healthy when the Celtics and Sixers are a rivalry and don’t like each other,” Rivers said.

If you haven’t seen much of Rivers on TV, that’s by design. After stepping down as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks in April, he joined NBC as an analyst but his schedule doesn’t really pick up until the NFL season ends in January.

Rivers will call his first game for NBC next week — Los Angeles Lakers vs. Charlotte Hornets on Nov. 17 alongside Terry Gannon and courtside reporter Grant Liffman. Once his schedule ramps up, Rivers will call games alongside Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle, but it’s unclear if he’ll land any Sixers or Celtics games.

He’ll also spend some time doing studio work, which he did for the first time last week on Peacock’s RedZone-style NBA Whiparound show alongside Noah Eagle and Brian Scalabrine.

“It’s hard to get 15 games in,” Rivers said. “If somehow we could figure out once a week doing seven or eight games on at the same time … I didn’t know I was going to have that much fun doing that.”

It’s a big change from what his role was at ESPN when he was hired in 2023 to call the NBA Finals, something he’s done just once (in a prior broadcast stint, alongside Al Michaels on ABC in 2004). It was a role he gave up for the chance to coach the Bucks, which convinced Rivers his days of coaching in the NBA are over.

“I remember the game, sitting next to [Bucks assistant coach] Darvin Ham, and in the middle of the game I said to him, ‘You know what? That is it for me,’” Rivers said. “You just know when you still want to be around the game, but you don’t want to work in the game, and that’s basically what I’m doing.”

Rivers praised Sixers head coach Nick Nurse for figuring out a way to put his star players in the right spots. That includes identifying Tyrese Maxey as the team’s top scorer and how LeBron James fits in on the court.

“LeBron has really sacrificed everything — salary, his game,” Rivers said. “He’s playing the role of Magic Johnson, and it’s been fun to watch.”

While the Sixers will obviously hit bumps along the way, Rivers said the success the team has had through their first 11 games should be sustainable throughout the season and into the playoffs.

“If you rank the top five point guards in the league, Maxey is in the top five. If you rank the top five centers, Joel Embiid’s in the top five. If you rank the top threes, Jaylen Brown’s in the top five. If you rank the top five defensive guards, V. J. Edgecombe’s in the top five,” Rivers said. “And I haven’t even mentioned LeBron yet. That’s sustainable.”

While the additions of James and Brown captured headlines, Rivers also highlighted three signings that have gone a bit under-the-radar outside of Philly — Dean Wade, Anfernee Simmons, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

“Anyone can go out and get a star on their team,” Rivers said. “Championship teams need great role players, and great front offices go out and fit all the right pieces around the stars to win.

Rivers coached the Sixers for three seasons, and while he was able to rack up a lot of regular-season wins, he’s largely remembered for failing to lead the team beyond the second round of the playoffs.

That includes high-profile losses to both the Atlanta Hawks and Celtics, which led to the team firing him in 2023 with two years remaining on his contact.

Is there anything Rivers wishes he’d done differently during his time in Philly?

“We had some big games we didn’t come through on, and that will always be my regret,” Rivers said.

“You can do a lot of winning, and I thought we did,” he added. “But we were never the winner.”

Rivers defended comments he made on The Bill Simmons Podcast last week, where he said it “wasn’t easy” coaching Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee because of his aggressive playing style.

“I could have said that better,” Rivers said. “I was trying to say it more as a compliment. Coaching great players is hard, and coaching Giannis is hard. That doesn’t mean Giannis is hard to coach.”

Rivers did have one regret over his remarks. In describing Antetokounmpo’s many skills on the court, Rivers told Simmons the Miami Heat star “has this great passing ability, but he doesn’t necessarily have super IQ at the same time.”

In hindsight, Rivers wishes he’d used a different word.

“I used the word IQ, which you should never use,” Rivers said. “I should have used feel.”

Regardless, the comments didn’t sit well with Antetokounmpo, who told reporters Monday he was “speechless.”

“That’s crazy. Never let bitterness and pettiness get in front of your goals and dreams, man,” Antetokounmpo said, according to The Athletic. “For every athlete out there, never let that [happen]. That’s insane.”