The rumors had been floating for much of the past week about the Los Angeles Clippers’ interest in acquiring Doc Rivers’ son Austin Rivers to back up Chris Paul, and it officially happened on Thursday when they traded Reggie Bullock to the Phoenix Suns, Chris Douglas-Roberts and a 2017 second-round pick to the Boston Celtics in a three-team deal.
The Clippers also waived Jordan Farmar to make the deal happen, so a good amount of effort went into getting Rivers to Los Angeles. The guard took his time to thank New Orleans for what it has done for him on twitter:
Want to thank everyone in N.O. over the years for their support. Learned a lot & had great memories. True love for the people there.
— Austin Rivers (@AustinRivers25) January 16, 2015
Amused by all of this was Bill Simmons of Grantland, who isn’t exactly friendly with Doc Rivers and had this sarcastic remark for the President of Operations of the Clippers:
Sources: Clippers sign Austin Rivers to a 5-year, $120 million extension.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 16, 2015
Simmons has a point: who else in the league would go through all this trouble, with respect, for Rivers? He doesn’t particularly shoot well from anywhere on the floor (38.7 percent from the field, 28 percent on 3′s, 74.6 percent from the line) and has no real position. His play hasn’t improved much from last season (his PER this year has dropped to 10.1 from 11.6 last year) either.
Maybe the father knows something about his son that the rest of the league doesn’t, but this hardly seems like the team-altering move that could put the Clippers in contention with some of the other top teams in the league.
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Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.