Doc Rivers: 'This was a distraction'
ESPN.com news services
Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers said the Clippers were distracted and angered by the racist comments made by owner Donald Sterling.
'This was a distraction,' Rivers said in an interview with ESPN's Michael Wilbon. 'The first [team] meeting after this came out ... when I looked at [the players'] faces, they were angry, they wanted to DO something. ... As a coach, I had to think about it. I'm not going to kid you, I walked out with my [Clippers] gear on, because I need the players to see me with the gear on, but it wasn't easy to wear the gear on that day. Because at that moment, you're representing something else, and that was hard.'
The hardship the Clippers have gone through off the court has led to a boost in national interest in the team with an uptick being seen in the TV ratings of the Clippers' past four Western Conference playoff games since the scandal broke.
Despite that, Rivers has rejected any notion that his team is now 'America's Team' in the NBA, but can't help but note how much change he's seen in his lifetime on the topic of racism.
Rivers grew up in Maywood, Illinois, a town 10 miles outside of downtown Chicago, and is the product of an interracial marriage.
'I grew up in the '60s as a child at Proviso East [High School], which was on '60 Minutes' in the '60s because of racial acts,' Rivers told Wilbon. '... And the blacks walked one one side and the whites walked one the other side and they were throwing stuff back and forth. And I used to sit there and watch them do it and think, what are they mad at it. I remember asking my dad, 'What are they mad at' and he used to say, 'They don't know. They just don't know.' '
Rivers, whose father was a police officer, said that sports also aided him in seeing past race.
'I think sports helps me too. Sports, you don't care what's next to you, you just want to know, can he play,' Rivers said. 'I think that does help. I think people who play sports learn that early on. That there's no race. There's people and I think that's important.'
The Clippers, who will face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the playoffs, have been embroiled in a scandal that has led to the excommunication of Sterling, the team's longtime owner.
As questions have ranged from whether the players should boycott to who will lead the organization going forward, Rivers, who is also the Clippers' senior vice president of basketball operations, has served as the public face of a franchise when its best chance at winning a title comes at the same time as its biggest scandal.
Information from ESPNLosAngeles.com's Arash Markazi contributed to this report.
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