Retired NBA coach Doc Rivers is never afraid to speak the truth, and Giannis Antetokounmpo is on his mind these days.
Rivers explained on the “Bill Simmons Podcast” that Antetokounmpo is a “difficult guy” after having coached him for a season and a half before retiring in April 2026.
“He’s not easy,” Rivers said of coaching Antetokounmpo. “He plays at this crazy downhill pace. He’s really a difficult guy. He has this great passing ability, but he doesn’t have super IQ at the same time. He really has one way. Every play, he wants to force it.”
Antetokounmpo is an ultra-rare physical specimen, earning the nickname “The Greek Freak,” standing 6-foot-11 and weighing 250 pounds.
His time in Milwaukee is mostly considered a success, as he won an NBA title in 2021, but the end of his career with Rivers was frustrating. The Bucks had nearly no assets to acquire new players and Antetokounmpo himself was a constant source of trade conjecture.
“I wished he learned how to execute better,” Rivers said. “The thing he needs to still learn is the value of execution. How important it is when you’re in practice and shoot around to lock in on execution. Now he has a coach who’s as good as there is in execution.”
The Bucks finally did trade him to the Miami Heat this past offseason and he’s hooked up with coach Erik Spoelstra, though early returns have not been good with a 3-6 record.
“For the team to work, you have to learn how to execute,” Rivers said.
Rivers has always been honest when talking about players he’s coaching, including when he’s still with the team.
As the 76ers coach, Rivers had a blunt answer to a reporter after Ben Simmons passed up a wide-open layup in Game 7 of a playoff game against the Atlanta Hawks in 2021.
The reporter asked whether Rivers still believed in Simmons to be an elite point guard on a championship-winning team.
“I don’t know that question or the answer to that right now,” Rivers replied after they lost to a clearly inferior Hawks team that went on to not be a contender in the years following. “So I don’t know the answer to that.”
Simmons refused to show up the following year and was eventually traded to the Nets for James Harden before falling out of the league in a detrimental chain of events for his career.
Simmons later said Rivers’ comments infuriated him.
“How did I feel? I was like, ‘What a piece of s—t,” Simmons said of Rivers’ blunt comments in a recent documentary “Ben Being Ben”. “When times get tough, people start panicking. People throw people under the bus, and that’s just what happened.”
Antetokounmpo and the Heat face the floundering Kings on Sunday after losing to the Warriors on Thursday.
