Doc Rivers lured to Bucks by shot at championship - ESPN

MILWAUKEE — When Doc Rivers flew into Dallas this week, he was planning to spend extra time with his daughter and son-in-law before he was scheduled to broadcast an ESPN game between the Mavericks and Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night.

Instead, when he checked his phone Tuesday afternoon, he had what he called «a lot of urgent messages» following the news that the Milwaukee Bucks had fired first-year coach Adrian Griffin.

To that point, Rivers said he was comfortable with his time away from coaching after being fired this past summer following three seasons as coach for the Philadelphia 76ers. He said he had been contacted several times about a coach vacancy in the time since, but he hadn't taken the call and wouldn't in the future — unless it was the right job.

Enter Milwaukee, where he was an All-American at Marquette in the 1980s and has his retired jersey number hanging in the rafters at the Bucks' home arena. Then consider the team he inherits, with two superstars in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard and a chance to win a championship.

«You know the answer. Giannis, Dame. Really, that's the answer,» Rivers said at his introductory news conference Saturday morning. «Like, you look at their team. What is it, eight teams that have a legitimate shot [at a championship]? And I don't know if it's that high, but the Bucks are one of them, right?

»The other thing is the way they're built with the veterans and their grown-ups. I thought that if you're going to jump into this at this time of the year, this would be a type of group that you have the best opportunity to connect and change the quickest."

Rivers, 62, was introduced at a news conference sitting next to Bucks general manager Jon Horst on Saturday morning,