Rowan Kavner
ATLANTA – Long before the Clippers acquired Doc Rivers in a trade for a draft pick, he was the draft pick getting traded for a coach.
In 1983, the Atlanta Hawks sent coach Kevin Loughery to the Bulls for a second-round pick. That No. 31 overall selection, thanks to coach Mike Fratello, became Rivers, who was back in Atlanta on Wednesday as the Clippers faced the Hawks.
“We kind of came in together, said Fratello, now a national analyst. “So, he was part of the beginning for me. I can remember we got Doc and we got Randy Wittman.”
Even if Fratello didn’t really know at the time, he told people that would be the backcourt for years.
“That’s how I looked at them both,” Fratello said. “I thought they’d be our young, dynamic backcourt, which they were.”
Rivers started 47 of the 81 games he played in his rookie year. He’s go on to start 58 games the next season. It wasn’t what Rivers had envisioned, but it all worked out.
Fratello still remembers calling Rivers to tell him how happy the Hawks were to select him.
What followed wasn’t the typical joyful response.
“He said somebody had promised him that if he came out of Marquette early, they would take him in the top 10, and they didn’t,” Fratello said. “Now, he drops to that point in the second round, and he was …well…I could just feel his anger through the phone.”
That is, once he eventually reached Rivers.
“Mike called me to tell me I was drafted,” Rivers said, “and I didn’t respond.”
Rivers remembers the call, but he was bitter about the situation.
“I really believed I was one of the better guards, and I had a bad junior year,” Rivers said. “I was an All-American going into my junior year.”
So Rivers waited, and waited, and waited. He eventually got selected early in the second round, and then came the subsequent call from Fratello.
“I remember saying to him, ‘Doc, we love you, we picked you, so don’t be mad at us,'” Fratello said. “What you should do is come in here, make yourself a hell of a player and get the next contract that comes along when you do your next contract and show them what they missed out on.”
Rivers recalled a similar line of events. He also remembers Fratello telling him not to be mad at the Hawks, who were the team who believed in him.
“I said, ‘I’m not mad at you, but I’m going to take it out on everybody,'” Rivers said. “I thought that helped me.”
The rest is history.
“The team grew, and we went from a .500 team to having that run of 50-win seasons,” Fratello said. “He wound up becoming an All-Star, led the team to all those wins. He did exactly what he needed to do, show them that they missed out on a hell of a player.”
Fast forward 20 years, and each of the Hawks’ first two picks in the 1983 draft are now NBA head coaches – Rivers in Los Angeles and Wittman in Washington, D.C. Fratello joked that he knew that would happen, since neither of them ever agreed with what the head coach would tell them.
“But they were cerebral players,” Fratello said.
They were the types of players Fratello could have an open dialogue with at practice to get their input and opinions. Both players were well-coached coming in, with Rivers spending three years at Marquette and Wittman even longer at Indiana for Bob Knight’s Hoosiers.
Rivers spent his first eight seasons in Atlanta, averaging double figures in scoring seven of those years and a double-double in one of those seasons. He helped the Hawks go to three straight Eastern Conference semifinals.
On Wednesday, Rivers found himself back in that city. The arena’s different, his job is different, but the feelings heading back to Atlanta still remain.
“You see all the people, you go places and you run into people all the time,” Rivers said. “I’m always amazed at the young people (who remember him) and I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way, you’re too young.’ But it’s nice. This city has a good memory.”
Just don’t count on him putting his No. 25 jersey back on.
“It wouldn’t fit,” Rivers said, “that’s for sure.”
