Confirmed: Doc Rivers to coach LA Clippers

COACH DOC RIVERS. Source: http://bleacherreport.com by Harry How/Getty Images

Days of on-again, off-again negotiations to move Celtics coach Doc Rivers to the Los Angeles Clippers has finally been completed as reported at NBA.com.

For the rights to Rivers, the Clippers agreed to send the Celtics a first-round draft pick in 2015. The pick will not be lottery-protected.

This is the first significant move to confirm that the Celtics organization is in a rebuilding mode; it also shows the Clippers remain set on winning a title.

The Clippers also will take on the three years and $21 million remaining on the five-year contract Rivers signed with Boston in 2011. The $7-million annual salary is by far the largest that Donald Sterling, the Clippers' usually frugal owner, has ever paid a coach.

The Clippers' next and primary focus now is to re-sign Paul, who becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1. NBA executives said Paul, who can sign a maximum five-year deal worth $107.3 million, is likely to re-sign with the Clippers because they've landed the coach he wanted.

Rivers was available to the Clippers because he didn't want to be involved in a rebuilding process in Boston and was looking to leave, a Boston executive said.

The potential deal originally discussed had the Celtics sending forward Kevin Garnett to L.A. along with Rivers for center DeAndre Jordan and a No. 1 draft pick. But NBA Commissioner David Stern rejected that proposal, saying it violated the collective bargaining agreement, under which a coach cannot be traded for a player.

Executives said that even if the Clippers and Celtics had broken the trade into separate transactions, the NBA would have frowned upon that because it was apparent the Clippers' main objective was to get Rivers. And one executive said the NBA would prohibit Garnett from joining the Clippers in a future deal.

"Any potential deal is not going to work," the executive said. "I don't see any way they could possibly go there now. I don't see any possible way they could sneak around it."

Garnett, 37, who has two years and $24.4 million left on his contract, has said he wants to play for no one but Rivers and would waive his no-trade clause to play for a team with Rivers coaching.

The Clippers also will wait to see how Paul Pierce's situation with the Celtics plays out. Boston has until June 30 to decide whether it will buy out Pierce's $15.3-million contract for next season for $5 million.

If the Celtics buy out Pierce, the Clippers would look to sign him as a free agent, the executives said.

This marks the end of an era in Boston, and a start of new one at Los Angeles. For once, maybe next season, the Clippers won’t again be called LA’s “other” team.