LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 10, 2020

Doc Rivers

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: How you doing, Doc?

DOC RIVERS: Great.

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions.

Q. When you have these practice sessions, you're communicating about what you want to do, how you want to practice, how can you balance that with talking about social injustice and unrest when you're trying to get through a session of practice?

DOC RIVERS: You pretty much put them in compartments. Like before practice we talk about it. After practice we'll talk about it. We'll also make sure that our guys stay aware of what's going on. Whatever they're trying to get out there, whatever message they're trying to get out there, I think that's important as well. It will not stop, I can guarantee you. At least not from us.

Once we're on the floor, we do our jobs. That's going to take some time, as well. This is not a normal way of starting back. Usually going into training camp, guys have been scrimmaging for three and four weeks, they've been playing, shooting on hoops. That's not happening. This is a group, some of the guys have not touched a basketball or seen a gym until two weeks ago. We got a lot of work to do on both ends.

Q. This is technically your first practice. What do you think of what you've seen from PG so far? Also, what's the status of Kawhi? When do you expect to have him in Orlando?

DOC RIVERS: Haven't seen any of them yet as far as playing basketball. PG we've seen shooting. He looks great.

When you factor in at the beginning of training camp PG couldn't play, he wasn't healthy, now in this second 'training camp' he'll be 100% healthy, I think that's huge for us.

Kawhi is on his way. Should arrive sometime this evening.

Q. How are you approaching these upcoming games in Orlando? Is it closer to training camp or is it more like a road trip? Secondly, in regards to leadership, would you mind sharing your thought process into leading this team into this awkward situation? What kind of influence has Jerry West had on this process, if any?

DOC RIVERS: As far as the team going into this situation, it's awkward for everybody. But we've decided to come here. We all had to make an individual decision to come down to Orlando. Once we got here, we decided this is our mission. We're just here, we're going to try to drown out all the stuff that distracts us from our goal.

Socially we have a chance to take a stand and send out a message to everyone. Leadership-wise I think not just me but the entire organization, including Jerry, are all involved in that part of it.

As far as the basketball part, it's really the same thing. Once you get on the floor, we just got to get back into our rhythm. I think that would be the first thing, conditioning and rhythm.

Q. In terms of the travel party, walk me through the difficult decisions the team had to make, especially for your coaching staff. How do you decide who to bring? For the players, did you decide to bring all 17 players you could have?

DOC RIVERS: No, we brought 15 players. We will be bringing 15 players when Kawhi and then the other guys get here. They're close.

Then staff was a tough one. It really was. Because it's training camp, the way I look at it, we're assuming that as each round goes on we'll be able to add more staff. We really leaned hard on the medical side even over the coaching side, which made it a very difficult decision for me obviously.

Q. Without knowing exactly what you're able to do, have you had a team meeting, whether last night, today, at some point, Zoom or anything, to kind of deliver your opening message going into the first practice? If so, can you share with us what the message was?

DOC RIVERS: That's a good question. We've done it a couple times. We did one by Zoom. We did it when we arrived here to the hotel. Before we got off the bus, I walked on the back and I talked to each guy and the team as a group about why we were here.

The message is: We're on a mission. We've been deployed. Nothing is going to distract us. We're not going to complain about anything. Right now personally I think it's been impressive. When you watch what the NBA has done to try to pull this off, it's really impressive. We love it. We're here. That's it.

That's our message, is that this is a business trip for us.

Q. When the NBA released their list of names they allowed players to have on the back of their jerseys, I think some players were disappointed they were limited to so few names. Austin wanted 'Trayvon' on the back of his jersey. How do you feel about that? Do you think there's a chance to expand it more?

DOC RIVERS: I'm sure they can expand it. I've not looked at the list of names they've come up with. There's so many things you can put on the back of a jersey. At some point you obviously have to put a limit on it. Obviously they may expand it.

I think what Austin is saying is putting some of the guys' names, Eric Garner, different names, wouldn't be a bad idea. But at some point you have to limit it to something, right?

I think that's what the NBA and the players association pretty much decided together. I love that they're doing it. If they expand it, I'm all for that as well.

Q. This is going to be basketball played in a way it's never been played at this high of a level. Are there any things you're hoping to learn about the game that you didn't know before, things that you can take out of this, whether it's the effect of travel, anything like that? Or is this just going to be its own little one-off thing?

DOC RIVERS: I don't think it will be a one-off thing. I don't know what we're going to learn, but I think we're all going to learn something. We're going to learn about ourselves individually. We're going to learn a lot of what we're willing to put up with to win.

We're going to learn basketball, too. I mean, this is a different setting. I've never had where I had 65 games to watch and evaluate how your team is playing, what your team does well, then take a break, come back, now restart it. It will be interesting.

I think some teams may come out playing differently than they did for the first 65. Most teams will just come out and pick up where they left off, at least try to. But there absolutely will be lessons learned both individually and as a team.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Doc. Good luck at the first practice. We'll talk to you soon.

DOC RIVERS: All right. Thanks, guys.