{"id":723674,"date":"2026-04-12T22:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T22:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/723674\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T22:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T22:42:26","slug":"bucks-coach-doc-rivers-isnt-quite-ready-to-announce-his-retirement-says-decision-will-come-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/723674\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks coach Doc Rivers isn’t quite ready to announce his retirement, says decision will come soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 With the Bucks long out of the playoff race, Doc Rivers was prepared on the last day of the NBA season<\/a> for one final game to coach.<\/p>\n

For sure, this season. Forever? That is still to be determined \u2014 at least with a public declaration.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI’m not going to announce anything,\u201d Rivers said Sunday ahead of the Bucks game against the 76ers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rivers, the NBA\u2019s winningest active coach and someone ranking sixth on the league\u2019s all-time victory list, again cited age and time with his grandchildren<\/a> as the key reasons he would call it a career. At 32-49 in a rather tumultuous Bucks season, and a strained relationship between the organization and All-Star and former MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, the signs all seem to point toward Rivers’ retirement.<\/p>\n

The 64-year-old Rivers \u2014 who coached the Sixers<\/a> for three seasons \u2014 conceded Sunday did carry some added emotional heft. Yet, he didn’t want to make any kind of retirement speech because, \u201cyou never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want be Ali and keep coming back,\u201d Rivers said.<\/p>\n

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His final answer will come \u201cdefinitely sooner\u201d rather than later in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Rivers noted he has a pair of grandparents’ days coming up at school and planned to be in attendance. He said more than the losing has weighed on him this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s the age,\u201d Rivers said with a laugh. \u201cIt’s a lot of things. I still love it. I do. I absolutely love coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milwaukee came into the season with championship aspirations, built again around Antetokounmpo and further bolstered by the acquisition of Myles Turner in free agency last summer. But injuries doomed Milwaukee; the Bucks started 8-5, then lost seven consecutive games to fall under .500 and that\u2019s where they stayed the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

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Antetokounmpo did not play against the 76ers and finished the season with 27.6 points and 9.8 rebounds in 36 games this season, by far the fewest games of his 13-year career.<\/p>\n

Rivers also coached the Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Clippers and Boston Celtics, winning the NBA title with the Celtics in 2008.<\/p>\n

Rivers called games for TNT after his playing career was finished and later was part of ESPN\u2019s broadcast team during the 2003-04 season, including the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

Rivers, who played 13 seasons in the NBA, said he had been approached by a network (he didn’t say which one) about returning to the postseason booth but was unsure if he would accept.<\/p>\n

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Rivers has a 114-112 coaching record in the playoffs that includes a 16-10 mark the year he won the title in Boston. Rivers has missed the playoffs five times over his 27-year coaching record and only once (2017-2018 with the Clippers) since 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cI don’t remember guys being out like this, but it makes sense. I haven’t had a lot of this. It’s no fun. Losing, I don’t give a crap what the reasons are, I’m just too competitive. It’s just no fun not winning. It just isn’t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivers is going into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame this summer. Only Gregg Popovich, Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan and Pat Riley have more coaching wins than Rivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not going to talk much about me in my speech,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cI think the Hall of Fame, for a coach, at least, means that you had Hall of Fame people around you. You’ve had unbelievable players and you’ve had a lot of help getting there. It’s so little about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 With the Bucks long out of the playoff race, Doc Rivers was prepared on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":723675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[12775,3125,28733,153914,3368,3142,6375,7942,1260,3121,62,49866,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-723674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-76ers","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bucks","tag-doc-rivers","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-milwaukee","tag-myles-turner","tag-nba","tag-orlando-magic","tag-sports","tag-the-bucks","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116394154184176555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}