Doc Rivers Refuses to Shut Up and Dribble

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Do you vote for someone for what it does for you or what it does for people who you care about?

It's got to be the latter, right?

But I think you're stuck in the first.

And I think, like, and I think that, and I think maybe we're playing two different games, right?

Maybe that's why we keep losing.

Hi, everyone.

This is the best people with Nicole Wallace.

When I set out to have a podcast, one of the things I wanted to do was inch my way ever closer to my most favorite sport.

Because if I were not a cable news host, if I weren't lucky enough to have that job and this one as a new podcaster, I would do everything in my power to work anywhere near the NBA for a team in the front office, in the laundry room, maybe not the laundry room.

You know what I'm saying.

One of the people I love watching in the NBA is current head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, Doc Rivers.

He won a championship for the Celtics.

He's not afraid to use his voice when it is necessary and helpful.

So we were thrilled to get to talk to him for this episode.

This is The Best People with Nicole Wallace, and this is Doc Rivers.

Thank you so much for making time for us today.

Well, thank you, Nicole.

Thanks for having me, number one.

And if I wasn't in basketball, what you don't know about me is I think I would be in politics.

I think so, too.

Or maybe I would cover politics.

I think that's the safer route, but I'm not so sure anymore about that.

Well, the last time we talked, I was wearing a We the People sweater and you were wearing, I think it was, it was real men vote for a woman, right?

Yeah.

And we had so much hope.

And it didn't go out.

That went so well.

That went really well for us.

It didn't go our way, but I wonder what from sports, what from the highest level of one of the most intense sports on the planet,

do you know from a game or a season not going your way that the pro-democracy side might apply to this political moment?

Yeah, it does.

You know, I guess the difference is, you know, in sports, you have defeat.

You know, I've lost 3-3-1 leads as a coach, you know,

and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Like, those experiences is a part of you, and it's why you keep doing it.

But the resiliency that you have to have in life

and in sports is what eventually will get you to the top.

And so I looked at that during this run.

And, you know, we're so hopeful.

I think we learned a lot of things.

We're not as powerful as we all think we are, maybe.

Some people listen to you, but what you learn a lot.

And same thing in coaching.

The ones who want to listen to you are the ones who are listening to you.

And the ones who don't want to listen to you, they don't hear you.

And I have that sometimes with some of my players.

Like once they tune out to what you're saying, they tune out.

And so you have to try it at a different angle.

You have to keep at it, though.

And eventually, there's been so many times in my coaching career where I've had players who have kind of toned out or they didn't want the role that I wanted for them, but you just can't give up on it.

You know, you got to stay in the arena, you know, the man in the arena.

You have to stay in the arena and keep at it.

And that's what's, that's what's so hard to do sometimes.

When you went to the Celtics, you put a,

the light on the wall.

Yeah.

I love that.

I think that's like, that's how I'm thinking about this, right?

Like, where is

the wall and what is the light pointing toward?

Because it feels like, it feels like it can't just be the next election, right?

Like, what are we?

What are we pointing toward right now at this moment as a country?

Well, the first thing we have to point towards is getting out of our comfort zone and thinking that if we keep doing the same thing, that there are going to be different results.

That doesn't happen.

There needs to be change from the Democratic side.

I don't know what that change is, but I know the norm has not worked.

The norm works in the popular vote, but there are states that hasn't voted in the Democratic side in 50 years, but some are leaning that way.

So what are we doing that creates that?

What are we saying?

We have have to, you know, we are a party of being exclusive.

Everybody's included, right?

But, you know, I remember Corey Booker, we're at a function and I asked him, why can't the Democrats all agree on something?

Because the Republicans do that well.

Like some of the things, yeah, you have to look at some of the things they do well.

One of the things they do is they fall in line.

They don't care.

You know, if you listen to some of the things some of these guys said about Trump, and then when you hear them speak now, now, all they do is praise, they're falling in line.

But he said something interesting.

He said, we have so many different groups on our side.

We don't just have the white male.

We have everybody.

And to get everyone to agree on one thing is very difficult.

But we're going to have to start doing that if we want change.

You know, though, I spent some time with folks close to Obama after the defeat in November.

And what they reminded me of is that outside of the White House, House, every day of Obama's presidency was a protester from inside the coalition.

So because of the rapid rate of deportations, there were immigration protests outside the Obama White House.

I mean, he was not afraid of making his own side mad sometimes to keep the majority of Americans behind his presidency.

Yeah, I thought Clinton did that as well.

Yeah.

You know, Clinton got criticized as much from his own people as he did from others.

Forget the scandal stuff.

I'm just saying sometimes sometimes he decided that he had to negotiate and so you didn't get everything that you wanted that you thought you were going to get or that he said on the stumping grounds but you got some of it and and that is compromise they always say the best law is when

both people come from it unhappy that that usually means you got something good not bad so what is the conversation

that people in politics should be having to understand, you know, it's almost become sort of too shorthanded, right?

The Manosphere.

And Trump won because he played in the Manosphere and

the liberals were emasculating men.

What does that mean?

And where do Democrats go from here?

I think we need to take the because out.

And I'm serious.

Like Trump won and start there.

Not because.

Trump won.

What do we have to do differently?

You have to take ownership of things, Nicole.

We do it in sports all the time.

Yeah, I come in after a game.

We lost because, but then I say, we lost, but we have to do these things differently if we want to win.

We can't say, well, we lost because, you know, they just made a lot of shots.

All right.

Well, then we have to force them to miss more shots.

You have to do something different.

It's so strange.

We're blaming the people who voted for Trump for why he won.

And it makes no sense to me.

It's backwards.

Yeah, it's backwards.

We didn't get enough people out to vote.

That's one thing.

So we have to figure out, first start with ourselves.

How can we ignite ourselves, our side, to vote more?

Because we have more people to vote.

What's the answer?

We have to make them excited.

We have to connect to them.

And like, we're not connecting.

You know, we complain about black men.

You know, the majority of black men did vote for Kamla as it turned out.

It's just that there wasn't a big majority.

It wasn't enough people.

And so why is that?

And there's a feel of hopelessness in our community

because I think a lot of black men are saying now, it doesn't matter either side.

We're not being helped.

We're still being incarcerated.

We still are struggling.

So there's got to be an answer.

And we have to figure out how we can answer that question if we're looking at that part of it, for sure.

What, I mean, you're right, though.

I mean, black men aren't the reason that Trump won.

I mean, they came out in larger numbers than white men.

What is all the pressure?

I mean,

we've looked at the last three elections for black men and women, really black women as well, to save the country from Trump.

Yeah, it should be all of us, you know, number one.

And, you know, we have to get more white men to vote too, you know?

And I hate, like,

it shouldn't be be about race.

And it really shouldn't be.

It should be about whoever the better candidate is.

But we've gotten off of that somehow.

You know, in sports, you're always scouting the other team.

And because I was an ex-Republican, I've always been a student of MAGA.

I can't stop watching Steve Bannon to try to understand the risks within MAGA.

And Musk is this thing that really wasn't on the ballot.

And so as I try to look for the weaknesses in the coalition, I'm a student of the Bannon-Musk musk fractures but but there's not a ton of scouting right that goes on in maga and if you're going to beat them if you're going to beat that movement in four years um and and i i think it's a lot of vibes i think it's it's some creativity to give them due credit it's some uh audacity um it's some lawlessness right like judges are saying they do but it's a lot of vibes and how do you if you want to beat a team or a movement that's got a lot of momentum that's just vibes How do you, how do you study?

How do you become a student of that and then beat it?

You know, it's so funny you said that because I had a big discussion with my daughter, Callie, who is big into politics.

And, you know, she was crushed when,

I mean, she was crying and doing the election because I'm living in Milwaukee, right?

And I'm watching the ads.

And

I wish Callie was on because I caught her, and I'm not exaggerating 50 times, like, we're not answering to these ads.

Well,

it's beneath us, or it's silly.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, Nico, every 10 minutes, it was a transgender ad.

Yeah.

Unanswered.

Yeah.

Unanswered.

And, you know, half the things that they were saying came into law when Trump was in the presidency the first time.

Yeah.

But we thought no one cares about that.

Yeah, middle America does care.

They still are on it.

I turned to Fox and they're talking about transgender people playing in sports.

You know,

there's only 10

that have ever played in college sports.

Two right now.

Yeah, two.

Yeah.

But they know

that's what stokes people.

That's what gets people talking.

You hear people who are pretty smart people say still

is gone nuts about transgender athletes.

Yeah.

You know,

it connects.

Yeah.

But we don't think that that's an issue.

And so we study our opponent every game.

I just got out of an analytical meeting that lasted two hours.

Every single number that they've ever done is what we're studying to try to take advantage of, to try to figure out, well, why did they do this well?

I mean, those are all the questions that we ask.

I don't think we're doing that.

And until we do, you're not going to beat anyone in anything, especially in sports, if you don't know what you're up against.

It's not just knowing it and it's respecting it.

It's this, you know, and when I when I worked for Bush in the early days, I was a student of all the Clinton campaigns because they were the highest level that campaigning ever was.

And then I know from the

Stephanopoulos.

And I know from the Obama people who came after Bush that they were students of what Bush did well.

And some of what Trump does, he's so outrageous, such a shock, jock, and so offensive.

I think Democrats and pro-democracy, Republicans come to their disapproval of him honestly and legitimately, and in some ways too slowly, right?

I mean, he's been this person the whole time.

But I think there's a different mindset on the field where you have to try to defeat this movement that, to your point, is gaining steam, not losing steam.

And I wonder, as sort of, you know, a student of the psychology of momentum, what's your counsel for Democrats?

Yeah, we get lost in Trump.

at times.

You know, I don't know if it's purposeful or not.

I think it is.

Today is Monday, Nicole, Tuesday, there's going to be something that he says or does that we're talking about.

But the thing that happened on Sunday is still more important.

But we forget about Sunday and we go to the thing he just said on Tuesday.

And that's what we cover and talk about.

And then let's say by Wednesday or Thursday, he's on to something else.

We don't stick to it.

If you fall on something that is giving you momentum,

don't change course the next day because he did something different.

You got to stay the course.

You got to stay on things.

And I just, I think we lose our discipline very easy with Trump.

You know, I keep hearing like, and I hear people say, the guy's a buffoon.

I bet I've, I've never heard that word more about a president of the United States than with Trump.

And what I keep saying is, well, he can't be because he's the president.

And

he's won twice.

And not only did he win twice, he's got 70 million people that believe it the other way.

So maybe we're the ones that are the fools and we need to wake up.

Do you see anyone in the Democratic Party that approaches this with any discipline that impresses you?

Not yet.

you know, because it's just too early.

There's a lot of people.

I mean, Corey Booker even, but

not yet.

I think someone will come out.

They always do.

We didn't see Obama coming.

You know, as a matter of fact, I was a fan of Senator Obama, and I talked to him a couple of times because he loves basketball.

And when he decided to run, my first thought was, no, no, it's too early.

You know, that was my first thought.

Can I say something on the economy, though?

Yeah.

I think it's the greatest marketing coup in the history of marketing.

on what the Republicans have done.

It's proven that under Democratic presidents, the economy is always better.

Always.

I know that having worked for Republicans.

It's always the opposite of what Republicans say.

It's unbelievable.

You know, when Obama came into office, the economy was in the trash.

He really lifted it up and Trump adopted that, you know.

But what is it, 50 years or whatever, 50 million new votes, new jobs by Democrats, 1 million by Republicans over the last 50 years.

It's amazing, but we don't address it.

We do the economy well, yet no one hears that.

What we probably don't do well, we don't do the rich well.

And the super rich,

they line up because of the tax cuts that they know they're going to get.

But what the Republicans have done that's amazing is they don't,

the masses don't understand that's not them.

They're not included in that.

What the Democrats have done includes everybody.

What the the Republicans have done, really the 1%ers.

But Trump is almost like that on steroids, right?

Because Trump has said to the billionaire, at least in the oil industry, you know, help me out, give me money, and I'll help you specifically.

It's almost like that dynamic you just described, plus some corruption on top.

And he has more support among sort of people that aspire to be wealthy than all the Republicans that came before him.

It's almost like the more audacious the marketing, to use your word, the more support he gets among people whose interests are not served by what he ends up doing.

Yeah, and

I've gotten over the disappointment.

I was at a place at times during the election.

Or

if you're a friend of Trump, I'm not talking to you.

Like,

I don't, I was disappointed.

Like, you know, I belong to several golf clubs and they're usually Republican based.

And some of these guys are my friends.

And I stopped golf

with them.

Like, I just, the greed part of it bothered me.

Like,

okay, you may get a 1% tax cut.

Like, how greedy are you?

But it's human nature.

It really is.

But you're right.

Even those people aren't getting help.

It's the super, super rich that really are getting help.

And somehow we have to connect that.

Somehow we have to get people to see what the economy really is, is, as they would say,

for the masses.

And somehow we've dropped the ball in that.

We'll take a quick pause here when we come back more with Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers.

Back in a moment.

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Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes.

This week on my podcast, Why is This Happening?

Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth.

People often find out the world they're in after the fact.

And that's what makes this wave of global autocratization, as they call it, much more like the one that was in the 1920s and 30s than the one that was in like the 1960s and 70s.

Because in the 60s and 70s, there were bright lines.

There was a coup outright by the military.

declaring themselves the caretaker government, or there was an armed revolution that won.

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That's this week on Why Is This Happening?

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What do you think about the sort of analysis that the Democratic brand is so damaged?

I mean, I've been resistant to politics as brands because I always think you're one leader away from that totally turning.

Like I don't think the Republican brand is that great.

People just really like Donald Trump.

Yeah.

Um, what, what do you, what do you

don't believe it?

Don't believe it.

We go too far with that because you hit the point.

We are one step away from a leader that we don't know right now to being right back, you know.

And

I will say this, and I'm more like you in this.

If the Republican candidate was the better candidate, I'd vote for him.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm a Democrat, but I'm also an American.

At the end of the day, we don't root for our country right now.

Somehow we have become a sport, politics.

And you root for your team.

I'm a Bears, Chicago Bears fanatic.

And I don't care how good or bad that they've been, I'm still going to be a Bears fan.

And I'm still going to vote for the Bears if I was using that politically.

Because, you know, I grew up in Chicago, you know, that's who I am.

I must confess, I grew up a Nick fan in Chicago, which is really strange.

There's like a support group for people like that.

But you know what I'm saying?

And that's where we are now.

But it would have to be a guy that's way better than my candidate.

I will say that.

Yeah, yeah.

But there's just something there now.

You know, Tip O'Neill would go off on

the Republicans, and then 20 minutes later, they were having dinner.

The civility in politics is gone.

It's nasty.

What they did to Obama, the first time I've ever heard a president get booed in chamber, you know,

Marjorie is yelling stuff.

Yeah.

And then we have the one guy that stands up and they make, it's just amazing the difference in our asymmetry.

Yeah.

It's amazing.

What do you think about the league?

I think it took a bit in Trump's first term, but there was a lot of, and there were different things happening.

I don't like the comparison that, that the players are silent you know in trump 2.0 but what do you do you talk do players talk about trump do they talk about politics is it is it sort of like let's wait a minute is it too fraught like where is it i i would say not as many as i would like um i think our league is very young right now um and that's the difference they don't even care most of them you know they're too busy trying to create their own careers and their jobs you know it's so funny for the election the veteran players brooke lopez Lopez, you know, wanted to talk politics.

Pat Conaton wanted to talk politics.

Chris Middleton, who I thought was

very involved in politics, you know.

But if you go to the young guys,

they're not registered, most of them.

You know, and so

it's funny as a coach, you take on more than just coaching.

You try to get them to be involved in politics.

And I always tell them, I don't care what side I do, but I don't.

I just want you to get involved.

Care.

Because politics matter.

And I hate, well, politics aren't part of my life.

And I always say, well, that's not true.

Everything you do is part of your life.

And you need to be involved in it.

When you talked before the election, you had a great line.

I think I stole it.

You may not think that you're into politics, but politics is into you.

But, you know, to the other part of the conversation, there's so much marketing that maybe is just makes it turns it into three-dimensional chess when it's when it's whack-a-mole on the other side.

And I, and I wonder how you get that, that intensity to pull in young people.

I mean, you're, you're, you know, the league is, is full of exactly the kind of people that you need to care.

You know, young, successful people who know discipline, people who know greatness, people who have ties to their community, people who people look up to.

You know, if they don't care, then we're nowheres, Phil.

Yeah, people who have a million Instagram followers.

Yeah.

You know,

that's so.

And a million dollars.

A million dollars in your poor in early,

you know.

But but it's so very true.

And to get them to connect, you know, and I don't know this answer.

I'm asking you more is, is politics,

do you vote for someone for what it does for you or what it does for people who you care about?

It's got to be the latter, right?

But I think you're stuck in the first.

And I think like, and I think that, and I think maybe we're playing two different games, right?

Maybe that's why we keep losing.

Well, this is the me generation.

Yeah.

Let me tell you, I'm a coach.

Yeah.

And

this generation, there are so many moments I was really proud of our generation.

our young generation,

especially, you know, with the George Floyd thing and just other causes, the women rights.

I mean,

women have been unbelievable.

But when's the last time you see men excited about something in that way?

It's been a long time, you know, but you're right.

It's everything's about

what it can do for me, how it can help me.

You know, you hear men, I'm voting for Trump because he helps me.

He doesn't, but that's what they believe.

That's what he makes them believe.

Trump says it over and over again.

And he knows it's not true.

But he doesn't care because he knows if 5% of those people believe him, he just took 5% away from the other side.

and it does it over and over and over again.

I don't know who said it, but if you tell a lie a thousand times, it's still a lie.

The problem is that's not so true anymore.

It's lies are becoming truths.

I mean, there was no election corruption, there was none.

I mean, none that,

but we've we've actually have changed policies over this.

Uh, yeah,

states are voting for registration cards, yeah,

Yeah.

IDs.

Like this is all over a lie.

Yeah.

But he said it and he never stopped.

Give him credit again.

Like we all know, oh, it's not true.

People laugh at him.

No, they're not laughing at him.

They're starting to believe them.

They come around on the lie.

Yeah, it's become a truth when it's still a lie.

What's the response?

I mean, I think some of the struggle of the Democratic Party is its own earnestness, right?

So like it's against the rules to do X, Y, and Z.

So they're never going to do X, Y, and Z.

but the other side keeps winning by doing X, Y, and Z.

How do you adjust?

Man, I do think I'll give you a point, like this whole transgender thing in Wisconsin every 10 minutes.

And I can't.

And those ads are unanswered.

I mean, the campaign

had to confront that David Plough and Stephanie Cutter, and they were unanswered on TV.

They didn't think they had to because they thought it was so silly.

But it wasn't silly.

It was connecting.

And so I think we have to answer back.

We have to give real answers, not about Trump in particular, just about the lies.

We have to prove to them that this is not true.

And we have to flood the market over and over and over again, because that's what he's done.

I mean, I think some of it, too, is

everyone that has thoughts that's willing to share them.

I mean, that's why we're doing this, right?

I'm on TV.

No one doesn't get enough of me on TV, right?

I'm there two hours a day every day.

And I may be wish casting here, but i think that there's something about the way trump has come out of the gates he's done everything that kamala harris said he was going to do everything i mean you listened to to president obama's final sort of two weeks on the stump trump has done and there were laugh lines right and and and he's done everything obama warned and then some and i wonder he surpassed it yeah so i wonder like to your point like do you get your credibility back by by doing both things like like the vacuum created and and i know what you're saying i know i you're talking about demo i know people who have daughters who say, listen, I don't like Trump, but I don't want my daughter to have to play or get hurt by a biological boy.

To your point, if the facts were out there, I think there have been,

there are less than a dozen transgender athletes playing in college sports.

The facts may still move you into the column of voting for Republican, but absent the facts, you have no shot as a Democrat.

Exactly.

And also, also saying, like, listen, I'm, I don't know the answer on that one.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, but we're too scared to say that.

Right.

We're too scared.

We don't want to offend anyone.

That's so true.

Because I also, as a mom, if I, if my, you know, you, you want to honor and you don't want to make anyone feel left out of the coalition.

I don't know the answer.

I don't either.

But I know that, you know, I have a daughter.

You have a daughter.

You think the same way.

And then you catch yourself, wait a minute.

I can't think this way.

I'm not like them.

Yeah, I'm not like them.

And so we have to be better at studying all that and answering to it.

It's just so important for us.

I mean, what's the human sort of the emotional intelligence piece?

It's almost a disadvantage in politics.

It is now.

It's crazy.

It used to not be.

The standards have been changed.

They've been lowered.

The debates are a joke now.

You know,

they've become these nasty things, these name-calling things.

Listen, and the debates have also shown that they're not as important as we thought.

Because if you go by the one debate, it was a blowout.

But then Trump, the same day, says he won and he stayed on it.

Again, he just stays with it.

And we don't.

Kamala had so much great momentum after that debate.

And within two days, it was gone.

It was just gone.

She ran on joy, which like spoke to me.

Yeah.

But obviously, obviously didn't, you know,

what about that was wrong?

You know, I thought it was right at the time.

It felt good.

I was wrong as everyone else.

I mean, Bruce Breenstein was given free concerts in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania voted for Donald Trump.

Half the audience at those concerts who had a great time voted for Trump anyway.

So what does that say?

What does it say?

I don't know the answer.

I mean,

is it in what you said about your players, though, that people are looking for the intersection with where it benefits them?

Always.

Right?

Always, even if it's not true, you know, in politics.

All you have to do is make them believe that you'll be better the other way.

And it used to be, it was actually truth.

Now it's not.

It's so interesting.

I mean, I think the other thing about politics that doesn't

sort of benefit from the reality-based world of sports is that the results are the result.

The results are the results.

That's what I love about sports.

I've always, I hate sports where there's a judge.

Hate it.

Like figure skating and all that.

I can watch the same thing and all of a sudden I'm like, how did they win?

Because they voted on it.

You know, boxing.

I love boxing.

Love boxing.

But the end scares me.

I like the scoreboard where you can see the scoreboard.

And,

you know, it's a, it's a fair playing field, like it's equal.

You know, one thing I love about sports, and I always use this in life, we all start in the same place.

When there's a 100-yard dash, you don't get a 20-yard, a 30-yard advantage, a 40-yard advantage.

And that's where, when you get in the race, that's where a lot of black men are saying, like, wait a minute, they got a 70-yard advantage and a 100-yard dash.

Now we're going to start,

you know, even, but they still are ahead 70 yards.

How do I catch that?

You know, and that's the answer that I don't have.

Are the Democrats still at the table?

I mean, are people, are black men still listening?

Or, I mean, and you look at some of, I mean, Trump took down Jackie Robinson's page from the D.

I mean, does that re-engage, or does that more just

make it tune out?

I don't know.

It senses me.

Some of the things

the DEI, you know, DEI just blew up.

Woke blew up.

Just, just, they changed woke into something completely different.

I mean, Bill Maher, who I used to just love, has literally ran away with this woke thing, unless it involves him.

You know,

it used to be political correctness, right?

Which was his thing in the 90s.

And then they keep rebranding it as like an umbrella for everyone's grievances.

There are things in the woke part.

It's just silly, too much.

But there's so many important things that are not and for you to put them in one category hurts the things that are important they're things that we need to wake up about in our country i i love using germany as i i love this as an example um with the holocaust you know germany did an amazing job after the holocaust they had a reckoning They did.

They had a reckoning.

They had to admit that what happened was was atrocious, was wrong.

They paid reparations.

If you go to Germany, there's markers on every home where there's a Holocaust victim.

There's no, the Nazi flag is illegal.

There's no Nazi soldier statues.

They've had a reckoning.

And what they found out that it didn't necessarily, it did help the Jewish people, it helped the Germans more.

They became more open-minded.

You know, the protests with Elon Musk in Germany.

Yeah.

Because they've had a reckoning.

We have not had that.

We have not had that with slavery

yet.

You know, and it's in our own country.

And so, you know, for me, I'm a black man.

When I see a Confederate flag, I'm angry and I'm scared because I see that and that scares me.

And we do nothing about it.

Is that woke because we want to remove

a black Nazi SWAT sticker is the Confederate flag.

And I don't think that's being woke.

I think that's being real.

What is it like to see

things go the other direction?

You know, I mean, and I know that progress is uneven, but

this is a real

reverting.

It's a rumble, you know, and it started the day Obama was elected.

I really believe that.

You know, and I think there's a lot of people in certain areas like,

we're not letting this happen again, or now we're not being hurt.

You know,

and I think that's where the MAGA started.

They connected with the people that didn't think they were being hurt now.

I don't know how they got there.

I think they fell into it, but they saw it.

They recognized it and they ran with it.

And they've done an amazing job with it.

I mean, the movement really starts, and the attachment emotionally to Trump starts with Trump and the birth certificate.

Yeah.

Right.

So if you look at the people as his followers, they started following that.

I know people that are that are still really excited about Trump who used to call me and say, oh, you know, the birth certificate is coming out today.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

And the obsession with delegitimizing arguably one of the most successful presidents, not of our lifetime, but of our history.

I mean, eight years without a scandal.

Like, you can't say that I worked for Bush and I love him, but we were not without scandals, right?

I mean,

there was Katrina, there was Harriet Myers, there was Iraq.

There was, I mean, there are plenty of political and policy debates that they started in this country, but the effort to delegitimize them to now continue the vitriol against them is extraordinary.

It's what started it.

You're right, the birther.

That's what started it.

People got behind that.

That's as racist as it comes if we're just keeping that real.

And the reason reason they're still on the Obama is they're scared of Michelle.

You know, one thing.

My read is like, would never,

no.

Like, doesn't even want to read the new political news.

She's actually making comments to make sure you understand that.

Yeah.

What part of no did you miss?

I was at a conference this summer that she was speaking at.

And every time she opened her mouth and said something, oh, no, she's making sure we know.

There's no chance of that.

She's disqualifying herself from every party primary that could ever be.

They did the same thing to Hillary, you know.

Yeah.

And Harris.

And Carl Harris.

Yeah.

If you ask the average person why they don't like Hillary, they can't tell you.

Right.

Same with Harris.

Yeah, but they did it because they knew what was coming.

And they attack early.

And they did a hell of a job.

We'll be right back with more of my conversation with Doc Rivers.

Stay right here.

Hey Best People listeners, join me on October 11th live in New York City.

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For a live taping of the Best People podcast, go to msnbc.com slash live25.

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See you on October 11th.

I think your assessment of the league

is the best explanation, right?

And it's actually comforting that they're young and they don't see how it affects them yet.

And it's early days.

And, you know, when you were at the Clippers, I was on the View and I remember covering the Sterling crisis and scandal.

And I remember remember it engulfing the White House as well.

I remember President Obama spoke out of it.

I mean, a lot of politicians spoke out of it.

But I wonder if you think that these players, if something affected them or touched them, if they could still be touched by politics and drawn into politics and activism.

Yeah, I thought that group was drawn in.

Yeah, right.

And the goal, I have to say, when it first happened, I thought it was a big deal, but I didn't think it was a big deal.

You know,

you know what I mean by that?

We kind of know how big.

Yeah, we're in a make-believe world athletes are.

We are.

Our life is ridiculous.

We fly private.

I mean, if the food's not right on the plane, we can order different food.

Like, we, we complain a lot in our lives.

It's just, so when this happened, I remember the two things when I, our first meeting with the team, I wasn't sure

like

how it was going to go.

I wasn't even sure how they were going to take me because I worked for him.

And so I had to make a decision, do I wear the Clipper jersey or the Clipper logo or not?

I wore it and I walked in, none of the players had it on.

So I'm like, oh, this is not a good idea.

You know, and when I first started talking, I will say this, everyone had their hands folded, which means they're not listening.

You know, look at your audience, Democrats.

Look at your audience.

And so

I put my pad down.

And I remember saying, okay, guys, listen, my name is Glenn Rivers.

I'm not Doc Rivers.

I grew up up in Chicago and I'm a black man.

And I'm offended

by what was said.

And the moment I said that, the arms were unfolded and we did things together.

And that group, Chris Paul, Matt Barnes, all those guys,

they were involved a little bit.

That made them involved.

That got them involved because it connected to them.

It hurt them too.

It bothered them.

Adam Silver was amazing in that whole thing.

But even after that, I remember going to the first practice and that's when I knew, oh,

you know, Mike Wallace is here, you know, Tom Broko.

I'm using names that I know.

Yeah.

But everyone was in the gym.

Yeah.

And I thought, oh, wow, this is a big deal.

This is a big deal.

And again, it's because of the whole race thing, Nicole, which in our country, it's so funny.

You can't talk about race.

And if you talk about race, you're using race and i still go back to just

let's get back to who we are understand what's happened in this country and we can move on but not teaching history right i mean ridiculous it's trying to earn

this i mean like i think part of the what was revealed maybe by that is

Your players couldn't avoid it because it was about like it was their own, right?

It was your, it was a person who owned the team.

And, and it's not a thing until it's a, it's a thing.

You're owned by a guy who's so flagrantly racist.

And that was so clear.

But I think, I think people who want to be on the right side, not just of history, but of a moment, are looking for their cues.

And when, and the problem with not teaching history and making these conversations so dicey for people who want to be part of it and then so punitive and so flattened on the right is that people don't know how to step in.

And then that's how that's how the, you know, the wrong side perpetuates the wrong beliefs and succeeds in erasing history.

And you see with canceling DEI, it's not just about erasing black history.

It's about making white people ignorant, right, of the things that have happened because somebody on the right thinks that you'll make a white kid feel bad about something that happened, which there's literally no example of that happening ever, where a white student learning about the history of slavery feels bad for something that happened 100 years ago.

No, it's ridiculous.

But you look at efforts to erase history and that seems

to be scary.

Like we've we've learned, if you don't study history, you'll repeat it.

I mean, that's been told to us since we were kids.

The two things, though, that came out that I would say with the Sterling, or one thing for sure is what I learned for the first time is

people were judging us how we responded.

We became the issue somehow.

instead of focusing on the wrongdoer.

You know, how will the Clippers respond?

Did they respond enough?

Uh, did they do enough?

Should they play?

And I'm like, wait a minute, we're the innocent guys.

Let's focus on this racist and let's talk about him.

Let's let's go after him and do the right thing.

And I was blown away by how our players were getting inundated with their they should not play or or they should do this.

That was more of the focus than it was on Donald Sterling.

And then the biggest thing with race, and I, and I, some of my friends, I love having great, I love discussion just to get a discussion going.

I just, I've always liked debate, I like it.

But recently, one of my friends said, well, why do I have to pay the price of something I didn't do?

You know, that's the average white man's thought.

And in some ways, he's right and he's wrong.

You know, I did nothing.

Why do I have to pay a cost?

Or, you know, I don't agree with that.

And, you know, it goes back to, well, you're, you're ahead already, you know, but it's such a, how do you, how do you argue that point?

Because it's a valid point and it's a hard one.

But what is the zero sum of it about?

Because how does it take from you to learn the actual truth?

No, that's the whole key.

Because I don't want to feel bad.

I don't want to learn the whole truth.

And

what it does, what we're missing is it'll make you better.

If you the truth will set you free,

not us,

everyone.

That question about

why do I have to do anything different?

I had nothing to do with that.

Yeah, but the

massive wealth that was generated from, you know, Jim Crow years of slavery and all that.

It puts people in a hole that it's impossible to get out.

And how do we figure that out?

And I have no answers.

How do you make the truth?

And how do you make it like the thing that's stickier and that goes viral and that people are posting on Instagram?

How do you make the truth the, you know, the coveted sneaker of the season?

Because the truth is interpreted.

And that's why.

Because it's hard.

for people to understand the truth as just simply the truth.

Nicole, Sunday, go to five churches and they're going to open the same Bible and they're going to read the same verse.

And that's the truth if you're in that religion and they're going to say five different things.

And that's unfortunately where the truth is now.

Instead of they're just math truths, is what I call them.

You know, two plus two is four.

There's no explanation to that.

All right.

It's four.

It's nothing else.

And there's certain things that are actually that have happened, and we don't need an interpretation.

We have to figure out how to make those things the solid truth.

And somehow those things, I mean, the fact that there are people that are saying that there was no Holocaust, I mean, and there's millions of people who believe that.

How does that happen?

How do you marry the best of culture, sports, music, art?

A student of history knows that you can't just push every four years in our in our presidential politics.

You have to push the culture.

What role can sports play in sort of pushing the truth and pushing the best and pushing our history, you know, or is it, or has sort of shut up and dribble permeated sports?

I think it has not.

I think that the more we stand out and talk about it, the more we get guys to talk about it.

I think where we have failed as a league, Nicole, I think our players think that only the good players, the stars, should talk.

And that's not true.

Everyone should talk.

Everyone who has a voice or belief.

You know,

you have to have passion in something to really speak on something.

And we need our players somehow to become passionate about this because it affects not only them, it affects the entire community.

And that's the way they have to connect things.

Most of them, though, are passionate.

You don't end up in the league if you're not passionate, right?

If you're not disciplined.

I mean, all the things that put them in front of you as players would make them better than just about anyone else.

I mean, and they all have sisters or moms, or you know, you go back to women's issues.

Is it sort of like almost like we're hostages of our algorithm, right?

So they're just not seeing it, or is it their youth?

Or is it?

I think it's all those.

But I do think it starts with the passion.

I mean, listen, I've been through those highs and lows, and the highs are, there's, there's, you work your life for them.

All right.

When Obama won,

I had, I was emotional for the first time.

I'll never forget there was a black couple in the front row.

I want to say it was a Rockets game.

And that was the night of the election.

We were playing.

And

the black lady was crying.

The game's going on.

Nicole.

And I see the husband.

hugging.

I don't know what's happening.

So

there's a timeout and I stop.

They were right by our bench, they're in the front row.

And I stop and I say, sir, do you need some help?

Are you okay?

And he looked up.

I'm getting choked up thinking about it.

He looks up and says, no, Obama just won.

And I literally, the game, you know, we're about to go out and I'm choked up.

I needed to take, I caught a timeout.

I caught another timeout.

And I told our guys, hey, guys, Obama just won.

And I know there's video of us jumping up and down.

You know,

God,

we need to connect that again.

For me, that made me emotional.

And so

that's where we got to get back to somehow.

I cry at the anthem at every next game and every Mets game, which are the two sporting events that I go to most regularly.

And I don't know if it's just that I think that people sitting around me might hate my guts for what I do on TV, but we're all standing there in that moment singing the same song to the same country, or if it's that for the next two, three hours, I'm going to be free from the things that keep me up at night.

Or

if it's that I think someone out there, you know, might be the next person that can bring people together and

bring us to something better.

But are you optimistic?

Do you have anything?

I'm always optimistic.

I really am, Nicole listen as you were saying what you were saying and seeing when I started talking about the Obama thing you were getting teary-eyed then and I was

you know what makes our country great is we just had this discussion yeah and we can

and and in most countries you can't or in a lot of countries you can't have this if we had this discussion in a lot of other countries right when we got off air, there are people waiting for us to lock us up.

And we can complain, You know, it's like your family.

Oh, you can complain all day

about your own kids, but don't let anybody else complain about them.

Exactly.

That's how we feel about our country.

So we have the right to complain.

We have the right to want to fix it.

And we should all get involved in fixing it, but don't mess with our country.

Our country is fantastic.

That's the way I look at it at the end of the day.

There's so much about where you are and how beloved you are and how beloved your players are.

What's been the best moment this year?

Oh,

that's a great question.

This year, our best moments, number one, is winning the in-season tournament.

That was absolutely awesome for us.

I would say

number two

this year is watching my young players progress so quickly.

Players that before the year, we didn't think we were going to have.

And then three,

this is a strange one, but it was Christmas afternoon.

I was in the office by myself.

And Pat Conneton, who was a player on our team, who had lost his,

he's lost his minutes,

a veteran who won a championship here, was in the gym all by himself running.

And I just, like, I'm the emotional guy.

That actually made me emotional because this is a guy that doesn't complain.

He doesn't, he just sticks at it and he, and he, and he believes that at some point, he's going to get another shot.

You do the work.

Yeah.

Last night he had 43 points.

Yeah.

And he got a shot.

And so that might have been one of my best moments.

I love that.

I love how much you love them.

I know you said that some of the worst advice you got was to not get attached to them, the players.

Thank God I didn't listen.

I was going to say, it feels like the best advice you might give a coach just starting out is to do the opposite.

Yeah, pour in.

And you're going to get your heart broken.

It's just like, I guess, trying to fall in love i don't know but you're going to get your heart broken there's going to be guys that are going to resist you and that's okay and just understand don't take it personal and don't make that guy a bad guy he just didn't as you use the word vibe he didn't vibe with you and i've learned that as a coach that i'm not for everybody and that's okay I love something that you said in the, in, in the Netflix doc.

You said, you know, these guys say I'm going to practice.

And I see this in my own son.

He doesn't say he's going to practice.

He says he's going to hit.

There's nothing that makes my son feel more alive than swinging a baseball bat so he never says like i got to go practice or i've got to go it's i'm going to hit and it's like his face lights up and you said that about basketball that it was never i got to go practice it because i'm going to go play basketball the greatest game is it is it is it sort of sinking your passion with what you do or what is what is sort of the best advice for for being as good as you are still being in love with what you do Just being in love with it.

I may be accused of sometimes being too in love with it

because there are things, you know, family and all kinds of things that you make sacrifices.

And if you look back, oh, man, I probably shouldn't have done that.

You know, I know right now, the players are about to start.

There's either two outcomes.

I'm going to land the plane or I'm going to crash the plane.

And that's it.

And you can't wait to get involved in it.

That tells you how great this job is for me.

Good luck with everything that comes next.

Thank you for carving out this hour for us.

We're really grateful to get to talk to you.

Oh, this is great.

I can talk to you every day.

This is fantastic.

I'm always here.

You know where to find me in the summer if you want to come hang out anytime.

I love it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Take care.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the best people.

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