The much-hyped new lead NBA broadcasting team for ABC/ESPN may not even make it through a season. But how close a change is to happening there depends on which NBA insider you read. With the Milwaukee Bucks firing head coach Adrian Griffin Tuesday, lots of talk sprung up around Doc Rivers (an analyst on that lead team alongside Doris Burke and play-by-play voice Mike Breen) perhaps returning to coaching in that role, and Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium added to that with an Athletic report (alongside Sam Amick and Eric Nehm) on Rivers as the “leader” and the sides “working out a deal”:
Doc Rivers is the leader to become new head coach of the Bucks and the sides are working toward a deal, league sources say.
Inside the firing of Adrian Griffin and another former head coach also considered — @TheAthletic with @sam_amick, @eric_nehm: https://t.co/pMJ4EYUIYZ
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 23, 2024
And another strange thing there is that that piece included discussions of Rivers acting as an “informal consultant” for the just-fired Griffin while working as an ESPN/ABC analyst:
League sources say Doc Rivers, who signed on as an ESPN analyst after getting fired by the Philadelphia 76ers in May 2023, began to serve as an informal consultant to Griffin at the behest of the Bucks. One month later, multiple sources briefed on the matter now indicate that Rivers is the serious leader for the now-vacant position and the preferred choice of key stakeholders.
The Bucks have started discussions with Rivers to become the new head coach of the franchise, league sources said. Warriors assistant coach Kenny Atkinson, who was a runner-up to Griffin in the Bucks’ head coaching search last year, is a candidate for the job as well if the team is unable to secure a deal with Rivers.
However, just nine minutes after Charania’s tweet, Adrian Wojnarowski (an ESPN colleague of Rivers) reported that the sides “have yet to talk”:
ESPN Sources: Doc Rivers is a top Milwaukee target to replace Adrian Griffin but the sides have yet to talk. Bucks are expected to reach out and gauge his interest soon.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 23, 2024
This appears to be an actual factual dispute rather than a shades-of-gray issue, as it doesn’t look like there’s a way to reconcile “the sides are working towards a deal” and “the sides have yet to talk.” (If this was about if Rivers had personally talked to the Bucks, both could be true, as many negotiations for currently-employed people are at least initially handled through agents or other channels, but the use of “sides” by both Charania and Wojnarowski seems to include everyone associated with them.) And it’s rare to see that level of disagreement on a fact from the two top NBA insiders.
Even with this summer’s announcement that Rivers would join the new top NBA team alongside Burke and Breen (with the analyst roles there vacant after the layoffs of Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson), there had always been some talk that he was using this ESPN/ABC role as a pit stop ahead of a coaching return rather than a full new career. And he’d be far from alone in terms of coaches taking a media stint and then returning to a coaching role. But it seems highly unlikely anyone expected the pit stop to be this short, especially with the highly-prominent (and controversial) changes made to that top team to pave the way for Rivers and Burke.
Of course, it’s not yet clear if this hire will actually happen. And Wojnarowski’s report is certainly throwing some cold water on it, especially with the language that the Bucks “are expected to reach out and gauge his interest soon”: that suggests Rivers hasn’t even made it clear he’s ready to leave TV. But if Charania’s “the sides are working towards a deal” is more accurate, and if that deal does happen, that’s going to be a big loss for ESPN/ABC. (And it would also be interesting to see news on one of their own personalities broken by an outside reporter, the reverse of how that usually goes.)
It’s also odd to see the discussions that Rivers “began to serve as an informal consultant to Griffin at the behest of the Bucks” while holding a broadcasting role. (However, he has not yet called a Bucks’ game this season, with the five so far broadcast by ESPN/ABC featuring other announcers.) Of course, there are yet no details on just what that “informal consultant” role was, and that term could be anything from pay for regular discussions and advice to infrequent unpaid consultations based on a friendly relationship. (And broadcasters consulting for organizations is not new, but it has brought up issues when it’s a significant and ongoing organizational role.) It will be interesting to see if anything more emerges on just what Rivers’ “consultant” role there was.
