Monty Williams considers Doc Rivers a ‘big brother’ whose influence stretches beyond coaching

PHOENIX — Doc Rivers called Monty Williams in February of 2016 to ask for his address.

“What?” Williams replied.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Rivers said. “I need to see you.”

After learning Williams’ wife Ingrid had died in a car accident from injuries, Rivers immediately boarded a private plane to fly from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City. There, they sat in Williams’ home and talked for about two hours, before Rivers turned around to travel back to his home and his Clippers team.

“That had a huge impression on me,” Williams told The Inquirer by phone earlier this week, “just because my head was just spinning. I didn’t know which way was up. For him to just jump on a plane … that’s who Doc is.”

That gesture epitomizes the deep friendship between Rivers and Williams that has permeated for nearly three decades, in a variety of life and basketball scenarios.

» READ MORE: How one season on the Sixers’ staff brought Monty Williams back to coaching — and propelled him to the Suns

When Williams was a rookie with the New York Knicks in 1994-95, Rivers was his designated vet. They reunited as teammates with the San Antonio Spurs during Rivers’ final season as a player. When Rivers became a first-time head coach with the Orlando Magic in 1999-2000, Williams was a trusted veteran on that team. And when Williams began his own NBA head coaching journey with the New Orleans Hornets in 2010, Rivers was again a seasoned source of advice and support.

Now, both men are guiding two intriguing NBA teams that will meet for the second time this season Sunday night. Williams is the NBA Coach of the Year frontrunner for leading a Phoenix Suns squad that has followed last season’s Finals run by clinching the league’s best regular-season record with about two weeks still to play. Rivers, meanwhile, helms a 76ers team also with championship aspirations after acquiring perennial All-Star James Harden at the trade deadline to pair with MVP contender Joel Embiid.

“It’s always going to be big brother, little brother relationship — but not the overbearing big brother,” Williams said of Rivers. " … He’s the guy that everyone wants in their corner. You may not always like what he has to say to you as a coach or that kind of thing, but you won’t find a better person to be in your corner on a tough day.”

Added Rivers about Williams: “Whenever there’s a problem with basketball or life, he’s on my emergency call list. And I’m on his.”

Williams chuckled while recalling the time Rivers reacted to him dunking during pregame warm-ups at Madison Square Garden by running over to deliver a message of “stop ‘bleep-bleeping’ dunking and work on your ‘bleep-bleeping’ game.”

Rivers never hesitated to be blunt with a young Williams, whom Rivers called hard-headed and stubborn back then. Rivers also used to make fun of Williams for the Virginia country roots that taught him to prefer fishing over golfing. But during those early years, Rivers regularly invited Williams over to his home to spend time with his budding family.

“He knew a guy like me needed a bit of a safe place to go and talk and just kind of goof around,” Williams said. “And it was his house when his kids were just babies.”

After playing together again with the Spurs from 1995-96, their dynamic shifted to coach-player when Rivers was hired to lead the Magic and the team claimed Williams off waivers.

Williams said that change “wasn’t as hard as you would think” because he was already used to Rivers’ candor as teammates. Yet Williams acknowledged “there were times when I had to figure out those lines. I just wanted to do well for myself, but also wanted to do well for him. So when I didn’t, I felt like he was disappointed in me.”

When the Magic did not re-sign Williams in 2002 after three seasons spanning Rivers’ stunning Coach of the Year campaign and the beginning of the Tracy McGrady era, Rivers and his family stopped by Williams’ home to say goodbye in person.

“In that moment, he put his coach hat down and he was genuinely sad that it didn’t work out,” Williams said. " … That was when I realized, to a degree, that our relationship was much bigger than player-coach. He really cared about me. …

“He could have ducked that whole situation and not even faced me, but he came over. He was the same Doc. Same good spirit about him. But I could tell he was emotional.”

Williams said Rivers was the first person to tell him that he had the makings of a future NBA coach because of his calm presence and the way he studied and discussed the game. After stints on staffs with San Antonio and the Portland Trail Blazers, Williams was hired as the head coach of the New Orleans Hornets in 2010.

While forging those initial relationships with players, Williams often thought about how Rivers always seemed to have a good feel for the locker room and how to handle various situations that would arise throughout the course of a long season. That applied when Williams coached Rivers’ son, Austin, when he played for New Orleans from 2012-15, a situation Williams said was never “daunting” even when it could have been.

“I didn’t know how that was going to go,” Williams said, “but when we eventually traded Austin, Doc was like, ‘Hey, man. I appreciate you. I love you. I know you did your best for my son,’ and it really meant a lot to me.”

After Williams was fired by the Pelicans in 2015, Rivers admired how he actively sought feedback from former players and staffers, who revealed Williams was sometimes too rigid in his tactical and personal style. He was the Thunder’s associate head coach under Billy Donovan when Ingrid died, and he stepped away from the game for two years to focus on his family. He re-entered coaching as an assistant on Brett Brown’s staff with the Sixers in 2018-19, then was hired as the Suns’ head coach the following season.

In Phoenix, Williams said he has made a conscious effort to allow everybody — including himself — to feel comfortable authentically expressing themselves within the framework of the team, an approach he recognized in both Rivers and legendary Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. That, in turn, fosters an environment of trust and accountability.

“[Williams has] an ability to tell somebody the truth that they don’t want to hear,” Rivers said. “There’s a lot of coaches in this league that can tell the truth, but the delivery is awful and it doesn’t go well. Monty is very good at being straightforward and honest, but people hear what he’s saying.”

As the Suns rapidly ascended from a sub-.500 team before the NBA’s 2020 COVID-19 shutdown, to going 8-0 as the darlings of the bubble restart, to reaching the Finals in about one calendar year, Rivers reminded Williams that pressure is a privilege. Both coaches have also navigated out-of-their-control adversity this season.

The Suns have powered their way to the playoffs’ top overall seed despite injuries to All-Star guards Chris Paul and Devin Booker, and an NBA investigation into alleged harassment, sexism, and workplace toxicity by owner Robert Sarver stemming from an ESPN story published last fall. The Sixers, meanwhile, dealt with the months-long Ben Simmons saga that finally ended with a blockbuster trade at last month’s deadline, and are now aiming to rapidly implement Harden before the playoffs begin in less than two weeks.

» READ MORE: The Sixers consider James Harden’s hamstring recovery a work in progress: ‘He’s still not there’

Though the Suns won this season’s first matchup in Philly, Williams continues to marvel at Rivers’ in-game demeanor. It’s a magnetic personality, Williams said, that would also allow Rivers to “go speak to the board of Microsoft, Google, and Apple and keep them on the edge of their seats.”

“I’m down there [on the bench] sweating my tail off, and Doc’s just smiling,” Williams said. “He’s talking to the fans. He’s patting other players on the tail. … You don’t hang around and have as much success as Doc has had without perspective.

“I’ve always thought he’s had an unreal perspective on, not just coaching, but the business and the fact that it’s just a game. … where dingbats like me are sweating our armpits out and hoping things go our way.”

Rivers, meanwhile, emphatically said, “I want to kick his ass” when asked about how he feels while facing Williams. “There’s nothing better than beating a friend,” Rivers mused, and added that if he acted any differently toward Williams, he “would be disappointed in me.”

After Sunday’s game, Rivers and Williams will go back to being on each other’s emergency call list.

Even when one does not pick up the phone before showing up for their best friend in need.

“He’s the highest-character player and person that I’ve ever been around in the NBA,” Rivers said of Williams.