SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — The Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen feud felt so distant and settled that the announcement that they would introduce their 2008 championship head coach Doc Rivers at his Hall of Fame induction didn’t immediately stand out as significant. That’s until the visuals of them arriving, joining together and sitting in a row behind Rivers emerged from the ceremony over the weekend. That’ll last forever, along with the lasting memory of the four as Celtics champions.
“It’s everything.
I wouldn’t be here without Boston, without coming to Boston, without Danny Ainge believing in my coaching from the start,” Rivers told CLNS Media/CelticsBlog in Connecticut on Friday.
“There’s no way I would be here. Kevin and Paul and Ray and all those guys. Listen, you see all these great teams being put together and most people don’t win with them. You need guys to buy in, and I had the greatest group, those guys in particular, they were the Big Three, they bought into me and I really believe that’s why we had such quick success. When that all got together, people said we’re gonna have to wait a year and then you’ll have a chance. None of them believed that and neither did I.”
As inevitable as Saturday’s reunion felt following the thawing of the rift between Garnett and Allen in particular which began when Allen attended Garnett’s Celtics jersey retirement in 2022, the likelihood of them all returning to Boston feeling so connected to the Celtics and each other wasn’t certain before that.
Rivers’ own Boston exit didn’t happen cleanly before up-and-down stints between the Clippers and the 76ers, where he battled the Celtics head-on in the playoffs. We all remember Rivers and Daryl Morey’s lament over the 2023 playoff officiating trying to gain favor going into Game 7. A controversial rise to the head coaching position in Milwaukee after that marked the end of the Giannis Antetokounmpo era there. Rivers, whose coaching record became more scrutinized in recent years, always found love in his return to Boston.
The same goes for Pierce, who’s faced personal challenges and a castoff from the ESPN spotlight across the last decade. He found his way home after traveling through Brooklyn, Washington and LA when Joe Mazzulla began prioritizing having Celtics legends around the team more regularly early in his coaching tenure.
Garnett, whose legacy splits between Minnesota and Boston, will receive a long overdue ceremony to retire his Wolves uniform this season when the Celtics visit on Feb. 28. Debate remains about retiring Allen’s No. 20 in Boston, since worn by Gordon Hayward, Jabari Parker, Mo Wagner and JD Davison, but few critique his Celtics credentials anymore. The TD Garden crowd showered Allen in adoration during a BYU-UConn game there last fall before telling CLNS he doesn’t think about the jersey retirement anymore.
Nonetheless, Saturday’s reunion seemed to put all that individual history aside. “It was a goal, I could tell you that,” Rivers told CLNS/CelticsBlog. “I’m a big believer, and I’m gonna say this in my speech, but I think when you win it, you do have a blood transfusion. You should be together for life. Those three in particular have had their ups-and-downs, and the fact that they all three agreed to be together on the stage and have dropped the BS, is the way I’d like to put it, is just absolutely amazing. It may be my last great coaching feat, getting them together, but it wasn’t hard. That’s what was so shocking. All three of them, immediately, I called separately, and they all were quick to be added.”
Rivers focused on relationships in his speech, the bond that 2008 team shared beginning with an expletive-laced reaction by Garnett to their preseason duck boat ride starting at 8 a.m., where they manifested the championship. He continued to reflect on the importance of the training camp in Rome and how it created chemistry early.
Rivers managed the Big Three feud, his own up-and-down relationship with Rajon Rondo, who also attended on Saturday after spending recent seasons on Rivers’ Milwaukee coaching staff and increased scrutiny of his coaching record through playoff disappointments with the Clippers, 76ers and Bucks. Yet he put the spiel about about his excuses, which have become infamous, aside to focus on the people around him. His coaching staffs which included Tom Thibodeau and Sam Cassell in attendance, his wife, children and brother Grady, who emotionally sat on camera while Rivers neared tears remembering their late parents. De’Andre Jordan and James Harden also attended the ceremony.
That, more than any coaching feat, gained Rivers the endearment that expanded far beyond the basketball world. His famous voice, massive personality and spirited outspokenness on social issues made him an American icon as much as a basketball one. He became one of the league’s leading voices through the George Floyd protests, the Bubble and Kobe Bryant’s death. Rivers’ final trip as a head coach to Boston this spring fittingly featured his passionate defense of his criticism of ICE.
“Back to basketball,” he quipped after the back-and-forth with a reporter about the subject. “But life is more important, as you guys know.”
The Hall of Fame induction ceremony takes place at Symphony Hall in Springfield, a tiny downtown with the Hall at its heart. Watching Harden stroll down a side street to shock and applause, women’s basketball royalty lining the sidewalk and Garnett walking out of the 2,600-seat venue like he, Allen Iverson and Dwyane Wade were leaving a high school graduation was a basketball dream. These figures, Joey Crawford among them, helped shape 2000s basketball and anyone who grew up watching them.
They’re now history, Carmelo Anthony headlining last year’s class and Rivers predicting Rondo will join one soon. It struck me for a moment what the venue, with a sparse group of reporters present and many empty seats in the balcony, would look like when LeBron James enters one day.
Amar’e Stoudamire also entered the Hall of Saturday, as did Mike D’Antoni, Elena Delle Donne, the 1996 US Women’s national team that featured Dawn Staley, Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslie. Mark Few, Chamique Holdsclaw and Candace Parker also received inductions, Parker and Rivers sharing their love for their native Chicago throughout the weekend. The list raised annual debates about the standard for reaching Springfield, but when the memories began flowing and the magnitude of what some of the names meant to the game, and the feeling around it, nobody complained in attendance.
And the huddle Pierce, Garnett, Allen and Rivers shared after will live forever.
“My mom was right, I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” Rivers wrapped. “Ubuntu.”
