“It’s not a place that I chose for him to go or a place that I wanted him to be.”
That was Celtics VP/GM/decision maker Danny Ainge at a press conference, talking about the departure of Doc Rivers from the Celtics. Since Rivers left Boston — and the Celtics got draft picks in compensation from the Clippers — there has been a battle of spin on how the exit went down.
Ainge has said they wanted to keep Rivers but that he wanted out, not wanting to be part of a rebuild. Rivers has said this was mutual and he had told Ainge he wanted to stay in Boston and it was Ainge who told him the deal was on and he was out.
Ainge made the above quote at a press conference, and here was Rivers’ response on WEEI Radio, as reported by A. Sherrod Blakely at CSNNE.com.
“I was very disappointed in that part of Danny’s press conference,” Rivers, now Senior Vice President of basketball operations and head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, said on WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan show Thursday morning. “Other than that, I have no issue. Danny knows just like I know, that that’s not true.”
Rivers added, “there were two people in that room, Danny and I. Anyone else who has a comment about what went on, doesn’t really know because they weren’t in that room; and it was more than one day, it was several days. It was an agreement. I’ll put it like that.”
Like any breakup, how it exactly went down and why is a matter of personal perspective.
And like any breakup friends will end up taking sides. In this case, that includes Celtics fans, who really have no choice but to side with the organization because that is where their loyalties lie.
I can’t wait until the season starts, although I’m not sure this puts this soap opera completely behind us.
