Craig Carton Calls Doc Rivers a ‘Snake in the Grass’

The start of Doc Rivers‘ tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks has been defined by losing and a whole lot of complaining from the head coach. The Bucks entered the All-Star Break with a record of 3-7 with Rivers at the helm. The final loss before the break was perhaps the worst of them all as Milwaukee lost to the Memphis Grizzlies, who at this point are missing their entire starting lineup. Rivers accused his roster of mentally being on vacation already. Which is a bit of a funny heel turn after his media appearances to that point had been basically devoid of criticism and instead were chock-full of quotes bemoaning how difficult his job was after taking over halfway through the year. Enter the We’re All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This meme.

Rivers was in the spotlight again over the weekend because he coached the Eastern Conference All-Stars. The top team’s coaching staff in each conference is supposed to coach All-Star Weekend but the Boston Celtics did it last year and can’t do it two years in a row so the duties fell to the second-place squad. Rivers said it was really weird and he would rather have gone to the beach but apparently couldn’t get out of it so off to Indy he went. He dragged the spotlight towards himself again during Media Day by repeatedly mentioning that he took over for the fired Adrian Griffin before the “toughest road trip” of Milwaukee’s season:

“Taking a job when you’re about to go on the toughest road trip of the season is not the smartest decision,” Rivers, who will be coaching the Eastern Conference team in Sunday’s All-Star Game, said Saturday during the NBA’s All-Star Media Day. “I even told them that: ‘Can we wait ‘til All-Star break?’ You know, it would have been a lot nicer.”

“The end game is what we’re playing for,” Rivers added. “And the organization felt strongly that a change needed to be made defensively and things like that, and that’s what we’re doing. The problem is, while you’re doing that, you’re in the middle of the season on the toughest trip.”

“I’ve been in Milwaukee [for] four days,” he added. “I’ve had the job for three weeks.” 

This is not sitting well with Craig Carton, who derided Rivers by calling him a “snake in the grass” on Monday morning.

I mean, it is a bad look for Rivers. He took the Bucks job after spending months as an “advisor” to Griffin and the team’s ownership behind the scenes. Griffin, despite his problems, still led Milwaukee to a 30-13 record. Then he got fired, Rivers was immediately hired (a sequence that never happens that quickly unless there are shady dealings occurring in the backdrop), and proceeds to spend the following month telling everyone his job is very hard and the losses piling up are a function of the mountainous task he has bravely undertaken. He’s working awfully hard to engender sympathy towards a situation that appears to be entirely of his own making.

So it’s pretty tough to feel bad for the guy! And this will merely be one of many such segments if the Bucks keep losing and Rivers keeps whining about the schedule/situation/his players, anything to slide the blame off his back. The conversation will change once Milwaukee starts winning but until that happens Rivers has a target on his back and this is a prime example.