Philadelphia 76ers fire head coach Doc Rivers

“No one’s safe in our business, and I get that.”

Doc Rivers’ comment after the Celtic had blown his 76ers out of the water in Game 7 of the second round proved to be prophetic — Tuesday the 76ers fired Doc Rivers, a story first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and confirmed by Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadelphia and, eventually, the 76ers themselves.

“Doc is one of the most successful coaches in NBA history, a future Hall of Famer, and someone I respect immensely,” 76ers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey said in a statement. “We’re grateful for all he did in his three seasons here and thank him for the important impact he made on our franchise. After having the chance to reflect upon our season, we decided that certain changes are necessary to further our goals of competing for a championship.”

This wasn’t a surprise.

Last week’s ugly exit from the playoffs — the 76ers were up 3-2 in the series and ahead in the fourth quarter of Game 6 at home before five quarters of basketball where Joel Embiid and James Harden fell off the map — was the team’s third straight exit in the second round of the playoffs (Rivers never got them to the Conference Finals). This team has the MVP in Embiid and a deep roster that finished with the third-best record in the NBA (they lost to the second-best). More was expected of them, even if Rivers had to navigate challenging situations like Ben Simmons and everything around him. Two other things helped lead to Rivers’ firing:

1) He was not Morey’s hire. This was not his guy and it was a button Morey could push to deflect any criticism coming his way for roster construction.

2) Any hope they have a re-signing Harden — who has a $35.6 million player option he is widely