PHILADELPHIA (UKTN) — Doc Rivers will return to the Philadelphia 76ers for a third season as the team’s head coach, president of basketball operations Daryl Morey confirmed Friday. Morey was asked if Rivers would return for the 2022-23 season and replied ‘yes’.
“It’s hard to be here right now. Always emotional. Doc met the team in the locker room and it will stay there,” Morey said. “It was an emotional dressing room. Look, we’re excited about what we can build from here. We’re thinking about a lot of things that we can approve of. It’s about me, it’s about Elton [Brand], it’s on Coach Rivers. We will understand that.
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The Sixers were eliminated by the top-seeded Miami Heat in the second round of the NBA playoffs in six games. The season ended Thursday night with a 99-90 loss to the Heat at the Wells Fargo Center.
It was the second straight season the Sixers had been dropped in the second round with Rivers as head coach and the fourth time in the past five seasons. In 2019-20, the Sixers were swept in the first round, resulting in Brett Brown being fired.
“We haven’t won a championship so that’s a goal and we haven’t achieved it,” Morey said.
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The Sixers hired Rivers on October 3, 2020 to replace Brett Brown. The Sixers won the top seed in the Eastern Conference in Rivers’ first year as head coach, but were eliminated in seven games in the semifinals by the Atlanta Hawks.
This season, the Sixers finished 51-31 and fourth in the East while playing half the season without their second-best player, Ben Simmons, who demanded a trade and caused off-field distractions. Joel Embiid staged another MVP-caliber season, and the Sixers eventually dumped Simmons to the Brooklyn Nets in a blockbuster trade for James Harden.
In the end, Harden wasn’t enough and Embiid’s injuries proved too much to overcome in the playoffs.
But Morey answered one of the many questions the Sixers face this offseason on Friday.
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They will not be looking for a new head coach.
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