Not sure if I did something to Doc Rivers or what, but he cut me off again on Monday afternoon during what I thought was a reasonable and fair question.

The topic was about expectations, and twice after the Game 7 loss you heard Rivers talk about the improvement this squad made over last year’s team, which was swept out of the bubble in the very first round. Brett Brown’s underwhelming six seed lost Ben Simmons for the postseason and then crashed out in ugly fashion.

But Rivers can’t use 2020 as the benchmark, because the totality of the Process and the expectations heaped on the Simmons + Joel Embiid tandem go back at least to 2017-2018, when they suffered the first of three second-round exits in just four years.

My question:

Crossing Broad: “Doc I know this was your first season in Philadelphia and it was Daryl’s first season as well, and in a vacuum you would say that #1 seed and a lot of wins, you’re happy with that. But the reality of the situation is that there were a lot of expectations that you inherited, from years before you got here, and I’m just wondering how you weigh all of that and absorb all of that based on what fans expect over the course of…”

Rivers: “See but I don’t know what the expectations were outside. What, did you have an expectation that after losing in the first round that we were gonna win a title the next year? I don’t know what that is. But I had expectations, so I don’t really care about anyone else’s. I wanted to win a title. I put that expectation out there on purpose and on our team. We set the bar high. We knew that, and we knew what we were working from, and that’s fine. Just because you have expectations doesn’t mean you reach them every year. You know? It shouldn’t stop you from going after it. If that wants to be a negative thing, you can turn it into that. I don’t care. As a group, we have lofty goals here. That hasn’t changed. We didn’t reach our goals this year. That doesn’t hurt me to say that. I’m fine with that. We’ll be fine and we’re gonna keep building so we can reach our goals.” 

That quote doesn’t make any sense, and listen, the hard truth and reality is that this team fell miserably short. Number one seed, out in the second round after losing three home games in the series. It will go down as one of the most pathetic choke jobs in Philadelphia sporting history.

Said Doc after the Game 7 loss:

“Listen, this team last year got swept in the first round. We had a chance to go to the Eastern finals. I’m not going to make this into a negative year.”

Ridiculous quote #2.

And look, in a vacuum, if you’re going year-to-year from 2020 to 2021, then yes, shipping out Al Horford and Josh Richardson and claiming home court advantage as the top seed is certainly a massive improvement on getting swept in the first round. But Doc can’t use that line, and he can’t evaluate in said vacuum. He needs to at least be aware that fan and media criticism and praise is going to incorporate the entirety of 2017 to 2021, because the current valuation period for this era of this Sixers basketball, in my mind, begins when Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons were first paired together on the floor. Beyond that, you’ve got the insanely-high expectations that were placed on all of these guys as a result of the divisive nature of rebuild and the need to justify the tank.

It doesn’t mean Rivers is responsible for anything that happened before he got here. Of course not. It would be insanely stupid to even suggest that. But he might benefit from trying to understand that he’s going to bear the cumulative brunt of several years of failure that took place before he got here. Like it or not, that’s what he signed up for, and he’s smart enough to realize that. This isn’t an entry-level job. It’s a “we need somebody to get these guys over the hump and capitalize on Joel Embiid’s shrinking window” type of job.

In my mind, it all just feels a little “casual” from Doc, his answers about positives and negatives after a season that can only be described as an utter, abject failure. Every good thing that took place this year forever goes into the dumpster because of the horrendous collapse that played out in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. You can’t fall pitifully short and then say “I’m not going to make this into a negative year.” Not a single person in the Delaware Valley is buying that.