Good morning, everybody. It's great to be here.
Thanks for taking some time here on a Marquette game
day.
Want to open up by just saying thank you to
Bill Scholl,
to Mike Lovell and to Mike Broker for accommodating this
today and letting us do this kind of cool,
kind of a cool story for Doc to be here
today and do this.
Thanks to Jimmy and Dee Haslam W Eden's Jamie Dining
for their support.
Kind of unwavering. Commit to winning,
commitment to winning. It's been incredible
to kind of go through this with them in this
process.
Peter Fagan, his partnership has just been incredible as well.
This has been a difficult couple of days,
but a great couple of days.
We talked a few days ago about identifying a coach
that could lead and maximize
this team's talent in in a
window where we have a real chance to compete.
And you know, we found Doc.
We talked to Doc. We went at it with urgency
as we talked about and it's my honor today to
be here and sit with Doc and introduce him as
the next head coach in Milwaukee Bucks.
Doc Rivers, Well, hello Milwaukee.
You know
it's great to be back.
You know it it took me a while.
I will say that and
but for for me in in short
I'll let you guys ask the questions about the team
and stuff just personally for me
being back here is is a dream.
You know, I think about Rick and Al and and
Hank,
this is where I learned
really
most of my basketball knowledge.
You know, I I came from three geniuses.
I really did. I mean,
they, they told me basketball.
They taught me life.
You know, Rick taught me all the restaurants
in every city.
So it's just really cool,
you know, being in a
arena, like coaching in the arena,
in in your jerseys hanging above you.
I can turn to the players
and say, guys, I swear to God,
I play basketball, just look up.
I swear that's me, you know.
So it's really cool. But I'd like to open up
to whatever you guys have.
Hey, John, First off, congratulations,
Doc. Congratulations to you as well.
First, we know that you've coached great teams throughout your
career.
How have you seen this team perform
and what do you think that you need to do
in order to maximize its potential?
And by the way, I'm Melanie Ricks.
I'm the team sideline of digital reporter.
It's nice to meet you.
Well, nice meeting you.
You know, listen, I don't know yet.
I I just know who they are as far as
you know, you you see the talent.
Obviously I've I've coached against the talent
you know,
so you know looking from afar
you think we got to connect this.
You know, we know they all can play
but we got to figure out it's the best way
for them all to play together and all to be
great in what they do.
Jim Ozarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Welcome back Doc John quickly for you.
As you said you wanted to act decisively with urgency.
So what's the the timeline here
on identifying doc then starting that process to to get
to this point?
Yeah, I think we talked a little bit about it
the other day.
But when we decided with ownership and Peter and myself
to make a decision,
part of that decision was to try to identify a
small group of coaches that we thought would fit the
bill and to really,
really try to test how much confidence and we would
have in executing that.
And and really that's what led to the decision.
And really quickly afterwards we identified Dock and targeted dock
and spend kind of a quick process
after that. But we're glad that we got them.
Yeah. And for me it was just a strange day
because I was flying to Dallas.
I was going to do the ESPN game on that
Wednesday and I flew up early
because I wanted to, you know,
spend time with my daughter
who lives there and and Seth,
my son-in-law plays for the maths
and I'm terrible with my phone.
You'll find that out. I have my phone off,
and I walk in my
daughter's house, and she's asked me about the news.
I'm thinking that some political news happened,
you know? And then she told me.
And then I turn my phone on to a a
lot of messages, urgent, urgent messages that I hadn't answered.
So it was a strange day
for you Doc.
This is probably what this is.
I think one of the few things you haven't experienced
in terms of taking over a team
mid season with this expectation.
So what's your sort of immediate plan to
jump in like this to get this team where,
yeah, listen, I've never done this.
I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
I I can tell you that just from the day
and a half,
but it's going to be a challenge.
It's it's a challenge that that I'm running towards.
Got to get organized quickly,
you know,
can't try to do too much too soon.
We're in the middle of a season so we got
to try to keep our rhythm.
There are changes that that that we have to make.
There's no doubt about that.
And we'll start working on it immediately.
You know, it's it's interesting.
I looked at our calendar.
You know
I should have waited until after All Star break.
You know this is a tough stretch
but that's good too. Like I always say good.
I don't ever say bad.
I always I do you know racks back there first
thing did you see the teams were playing and I
said good let's bring it on.
Let's let's get it on.
We win them all. Great.
We struggle. Great. Doesn't matter.
Our our goal is to be great by the end
of the year and but the biggest part of the
schedule is the
probably three or four practice days
left for the season. Like good days.
So we're going to have to do shoot arounds.
We're going to have to do things a little different.
Eric, name the athletic. Welcome back,
doc. Thank you. I guess just for you,
I'm assuming you were enjoying not
coaching the grind of not having that.
What made this attractive enough for you to come back
to coaching?
Yeah, I mean listen what's today?
Saturday, I think so Saturday
10/20. I would probably be on the 3rd hole
at Riviera or Bel Air
and it was good. But I'm a coach.
I love coaching.
I will say I wasn't going to coach though ever
unless the right
I wasn't just going to take a job.
I have been contacted several times this season
and I wouldn't even take the call.
So I was dead serious
that if the right opportunity open
so I would listen. If not,
I was fine and I love coaching.
So TV was amazing. Listen,
I got to work with my brain indoors and Mike
is not only one of the best to ever do
it,
he's also one of my best friends
for 20 years. So that was a dream as well.
Obviously with this team you have a two time MVP
in Yonsteda Kumbo.
You have one of the 75 greatest players of all
time and Dame Lillard.
How exciting is to is it that coach 2 talents
like that but also
you've coached star pairings before how difficult can that be
it? You know listen, it depends on all of us.
I was going to say just it depends on them
but it's not.
It's all of us.
We the key is to get them both playing at
their ultimate
level and making it so they can do that together.
That's going to be the key
and that just offensively but defensively you know as a
group
and that can be done.
That will be done just being around them I was
around the the facility yesterday.
They're all willing.
They just need to figure out how.
Doctor Jamal Collier from ESPN.
Congratulations. Well, thank you. Just,
you know, it struck me that this is,
you know, this least last couple months.
We're probably your longest time away from coaching since.
Or lockout or lockout. Yeah.
Just kind of held that time away.
What what do you think that that
did for you? Rejuvenated you?
Like how how would you say that it was needed?
You know, it's funny. A lot of the veteran coaches,
Pop and guys who I talk to a lot.
I think at the time,
before I left Philly, Papa and I had the longest
run as far as what,
23 straight years, Pops, 27 straight or 28 straight years
of training camps, you know?
And he called me and asked me,
well, what does it feel like,
you know?
And it was strange. And I think I was in
Paris,
what he called and I told him what that's how
it feels like,
you know? But it was needed,
I guess. You know, I don't know.
You love what you do,
You know? I don't know.
You know, it's coaching is a stressful job,
right? It's all the stuff that everybody says.
But is it stressful if you love it?
You know? That's the way I look at it.
Like I love
what I do. I love this job.
I love when it's hard,
you know? So yeah, you did miss that part.
It felt like I was on an extended vacation.
And then there just had been some reporting about you
sort of serving as like almost an informal consultant or
helping out with the bus.
That's not true. I don't know where that came from.
Actually. I was never a consultant.
If I was, I need to get paid some more
money
for that. Because I didn't.
I didn't get a check.
But even our good friends,
I've talked to Adrian the last three days,
you know, I talked to him the night of the
firing.
I talked to him. We talk a lot.
So listen, I wanted him to do well.
I I look at him,
this guy that he's a lifer and he's here for
15 years trying to get a job
and then he gets a job and it doesn't work
out for him.
And you know, this league in a lot of ways
can be fair and not fair.
That's for everybody else to judge.
I just know him as a human,
and he's a terrific dude.
Hey, Doc. Jack Money from CBS Sports.
Congratulations. Last night, when we were talking to some of
the players,
Pat Connaughton mentioned that your kind of initial message
was that teams need to be more afraid to play.
You guys, I just How do you want to go
about making that happen?
Well, I just think we have to find our identity.
That's more the message. Like,
you know, if you're going to have fear of the
deer,
you got a fear of the deer.
You know, You know what I mean?
Like,
but our identity right now,
you know, and I asked them like who are we?
And you know, you know when the team is connected
and they got it,
they'll give you the answer.
You know, we don't have an answer yet.
And then we got to find like what are we,
who are we? Every year you're on a new journey.
You know we have five guys here.
I think it's five that have won
a title. I mean the players,
right? And and so
we have to make sure they understand that
we want to do a lot of what they did.
But you can't go on the same journey every year.
The journey is different. Even if the same guys came
back with the same culture and everything that journey is
different and and so we have to figure out
who we're going to be in in in the type
of journey that we need to go on to get
what we want
and obviously you're extremely experienced all the players mentioned that
I just what do you kind of take from your
previous stops that you think you can bring in here.
Gosh man I've been through everything I I really have
as a coach that's what's so great about coaching.
There's a lot of highs there's lows and and you
work through them
and you learn from them always.
I At the end of the day,
this is a relationship business
and and
you know you, your job as a coach is to
get some of the guys to do some of the
things they don't want to do
and you're not going to be popular all the time
and that's fine.
You have to accept that.
When we accept the leadership role,
that's just part of it.
But if you can get to buy in and get
everybody to buy in and be on the same page,
then you can have some success.
Steve Mcgargie, Associated Press. Congratulations.
I was just wondering the defense,
it's been much has been made this season about the
drop off in the Bucks defense compared to previous years
when you saw them from afar.
How good a defense can this team have and what
do you think is kind of been missing in that
side of the bone?
You know what I've I've not been in long enough.
You're correct about the defense.
I will say that
I I said in the stands last night
and I saw some of it,
but it's here.
I think we have to get on the right page,
the same page
we we we our language and our our communication.
Defensively
we have to get that right.
I think right now you can feel it,
you know, some this way,
some this way we got to get on the same
page.
We got to do things differently too than the past.
You know True and Dame are different players.
So we have to we have to change some things
for sure.
And just to confirm your debut will here will be
at Denver will be your first.
I know that's smart, right?
Yeah.
Hey coach Gabe stoltzbruhhoop.com. Obviously you see
Dame Giannis, Chris highlighting the way for the Bucs,
but there's some young talent on the team to Marjon,
Andre Jackson, Junior. Just how do you envision
developing that young talent on the roster?
You asking me or John,
me?
I don't know yet. You know,
I can't wait to get in the gym with them.
That's the guys that I can spend time with because
you know they don't have,
they're not high minute guys yet,
but one of those guys are going to have to
help us
is the way I look at it from afar.
You know you may get in the gym and that
changes,
but right now I look at our young guys and
always one of these guys,
then maybe 2 but one for sure will will at
some point have to help us.
And that's our job as a staff to develop them.
And it's not just develop them individually,
it's more team development to develop them to learn how
to play with a veteran team.
And people don't realize how hard that is for young
guys.
Every guy that comes out of college is the guy
on their team
and now you join this team,
you have Giannis and Dame and Chris Middleton.
You're not the guy on this team
and and and learning how to play in that role
and being successful is extremely hard.
But I really believe by the end of the year,
one of those guys will definitely be able to help
us
over here. Steven Watson from Valley Sports.
Wisconsin. First, if you didn't know,
great golf here in Wisconsin.
I do know. Yes, Yes,
not in December. But anyway,
you had mentioned receiving phone calls on the golf course
from other teams and you didn't answer.
Why did you answer this call?
Because, I mean, come on,
you know the answer.
Giannis Dame. Really. That's the answer.
Like they you look at their team.
You know, I don't ever know the list,
right. What is it? 8 teams
that have a legitimate shot
and I don't know if it's that high,
but the Bucks are one of them,
right?
The other thing is they're they're built the way they're
built with the veterans
and they're grown-ups.
I thought that if you're going to jump into this
at this time of the year,
this would be the type of group that you have
the best opportunity
to connect and change the quickest.
And so that's why I took the job.
I took the call.
Lance Allen, WTMJTV, doc with you in the back.
Good to see you. I want to go back to
what you said right at the beginning.
You know, being here is a dream.
Rick, Hank, Al, all the legacy stuff,
the jersey, all that stuff.
You had a pretty famous shot just down the street
in 81.
What is this city? What is this opportunity mean to
you with.
And because your name's come up before for this thing.
But what is it? What does it mean personally to
you,
this city and this whole thing?
You just it's hard to
express emotionally.
You know I and from afar enough to John this,
this is one of the places that I've
I've always had circled
in my life if I could ever
you know play here. I actually
pissed at Nelson Don Nelson for years
because I thought he was going to draft me.
I think he drafted Randy Brewer and I'm just still
pissed by that.
It was the right choice at the time,
I guess,
you know, So I never had the opportunity to play
here.
And then when I started coaching,
yeah, just this is, you know,
listen, I I'm not here if I don't go to
Marquette.
Bottom line, I really believe that not only just the
like Rick, Hank and now,
but the the professors.
I wasn't the greatest student
when I came to Marquette,
but I left a hell of a student.
That was not my plan.
I I wanted to skate
and it was not allowed
and it changed my life.
So coming back here to a place that changed me
as a literal person is is a dream.
Hey Doc, a little bit on Marquette there.
I know you and Shock have a relationship.
I don't know if you've talked with him throughout this
week,
just if you have. Have those conversations gone?
How how cool is it to be?
It's been a mile down the road from him.
I've known Shock a long time.
Shock recruited my son Austin
and had him. Shock was at the University of Florida
and Austin was going. He committed to Florida
and then Shaka left and Austin left.
He ended up going to Duke.
So we've had a very close relationship from way back
then.
We've talked several times when when shocker
other than John and and ownership.
I think Shaka may have been the first call,
like
the sarcastic get off the golf course,
time to get back to real work.
Conversation was from Shaka
Doc real quick. Can you confirm,
are you here through 2627?
Was that accurate? I don't even know.
All years we don't. We don't comment on contracts and.
Oh, is that right? Oh,
that's fantastic. I don't even know the answer to that.
Yeah, I just signed for a while.
You, you referenced A gentleman earlier.
Do you have, can you speak to any new assistants?
Two of them are back there.
Rex and and Dave
will definitely be joining the staff.
I don't know in what in what roles yet.
This is different. You know,
obviously I've talked to about 7 coaches already who have
done this,
some really good coaches who have actually done exactly this
already
and everyone of them had.
I was hoping they would be the same thing.
And that didn't go well because each one had a
whole different story about how it went.
But the toughest part is that this is a human
business and we have a lot of coaches who are
here already.
And so you evaluate everybody you do.
You don't come in with a set idea.
I guess I'll find some new friends and learn some
stuff too,
you know? And so I'm going to open this with
an open idea.
I mean, obviously we're going to make changes.
We have to. Because I have to be comfortable.
But at the end of the day,
you you just, you evaluate
John, I know it's been a stressful couple of days,
but I guess just to see Doc up here and
now that he's going to be leading the team,
just what kind of confidence you have going forward and
how excited are you to have a coach of Doc's
experience doing this job?
Yeah, I mean just absolute excitement and confidence.
I think we talked about an opportunity to get better
and that what we've done was way more about that
than anything else.
And to be able to go after someone like Doc
and ultimately be sitting here with him right now knowing
what we want to do,
not only this year, next year,
the year after, these are special opportunities.
It's a great roster, high character people,
and now we have a really experienced,
high character, brilliant basketball coach who's been in these moments
and lived through these moments.
It's not my job to coach.
I don't know how to do it.
I'm going to do everything I can to give him
the best resources on and off the floor,
but he knows what he's doing.
He's going to lead us to where we need to
be
and then Doc, I guess for you what have you
learned about expectations over the course of your career and
and what that means to a team how it affects
A-Team. Yeah you know I've learned that you would rather
have them than not.
I've coached team with no expectations and that's not very
fun I can.
I can tell you that.
And I've coached teams. You know,
I I think of myself at times I've I've created
UN unreal expectations,
unrealistic expectations with teams. And
you know I go back to Philly the first year
we had lost,
the year before we were swept and then we went
to East in the regular season.
I don't know if we are
that good. We staff wise,
we kind of knew that going in,
but we had a shot at it.
So that's part of your job is to to build
expectations.
I learned that early on
as a coach. It was interesting when I took the
Boston job,
I got a lot of calls
from coaches to tell me not to take the job.
The expectations would be too unrealistic.
And I'm like, what? That's that's ridiculous.
You want to that and you you want expectations and
this team hasn't,
You know, listen,
no one and I'm going to use one line from
a coach that I know well is Bill Belichick.
If you can go to team where the expectations are,
if you land the plane and you get off the
plane and there's a parade,
but if you don't land it,
it's a crash,
then you got the right team.
And that's the way I look at
it. Coach Dari Melendez, WISN,
12, you mentioned you talked to seven coaches that have
been in this position.
Who were some of those coaches?
Who
was the advice they gave you?
Take your time.
Evaluate staff,
you know slowly even though early on you'll have too
many coaches
evaluate all of them you'll find a diamond.
That's that's one I would say that a lot of
them.
So you're going to find someone that you never thought
can really be an asset to you
and and and then that guy will become part of
your your your legacy and your coaching
and over communicate And then the best I think and
I already kind of knew this is take your time
with you can't.
You know Dave and I were going over offense today
and we had 1000 things on the paper and I
said OK we can only do one of these.
You know you just you got to
got to keep them playing
and we can't get them playing in their heads.
So that's that'll be the difficult part.
Hey coach Steven Watson asked you before what was it
about this opportunity that made it the right one for
you.
You said Giannis and Dame.
So I'm curious what have your conversations been like with
them up to this point.
Yeah. Not a lot really.
I talked a little bit yesterday.
I showed Giannis something that
that we hated that he did when we coached against
him
and and he hadn't done it a lot this year
and I was asking him,
you know, about that. He was laughing.
He thought it was funny.
I didn't think it's very funny
but so we talked about that a little bit.
It's funny. Tried a little bit of it yesterday.
He had some success.
And then Dame, I've known a little bit from his
shooting coach.
We hired a shooting coach
two years ago in Philly.
We're not going to say that we may have been
thinking about something else,
but we're just going to stop there.
And I got to know Dame through him,
but never personally. And so we had a pretty good
talk yesterday as well.
And then what is it about this organization that felt
like the right fit for you first class?
You know, that's one of the things that was a
driver,
the culture here.
My last two jobs, I will say I've had to
come in
and change the culture of the organization,
you know, try to change things.
I mean, I took a Clipper job with Donald Sterling
as the owner
and I thought that was a great idea when I
did it
because I thought I can come in and create change.
And I realized early on I said this is going
to be a little harder
than I anticipated. And then when Elton hired me with
Philly,
the first thing he said is we want you to
come in here
and and change our culture,
make this a first class
proof and they don't allow me to do that for
the most part.
Then Darrell ate it in that as well.
So this place and I told John is
they have it and it's going to be great because
I don't I can coach
and that that'll be fantastic.
And Doc, you kind of obviously mentioned that you were
good at home.
Like you know it was had to be the right
job.
But do you feel like I was bored?
You know, I am not kidding.
I was bored. I would call coaches.
You know, it's. I can't even tell you some of
the conversations,
but I would call coaches just screwing them,
you know, and talk. But yeah,
I love basketball. I've only done it my whole life,
either as a player or coach.
It's not like I've done a lot of other things
in my life,
you know?
So, yeah,
continue to that. Do you feel like you still have
something to prove?
I don't know. I have anything to prove except for
I want to win.
You know,
I like winning. I like putting myself in those situations
and I've
failed and I've won.
Man, I tell you,
winning is, you know,
it's something you can't produce.
Like you can't winning it all.
It's, you know, it's like having a blood transfusion with
everybody
in a group and organization and and
once you get that in you,
you want another one.
And that's my pursuit. So I don't know if
it's anything to prove there.
It's just something that I want to do.
Listen, Giannis,
that's what he wants to do.
Chris Middleton and and and Lopez.
Just because they've won one doesn't mean they don't want
to win another
and they wants to win one.
So yeah, I got a hungry group.
Thanks guys. Thanks everybody.