Report: Nuggets offered Celtics 1st round pick for Doc last week, were rejected by Danny Ainge


Interesting stuff from (who else) Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski.

Shortly after firing George Karl, the Denver Nuggets offered the Boston Celtics a first-round draft pick as compensation to pry coach Doc Rivers out of his contract, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Nuggets CEO Josh Kroenke made a bid for Rivers approximately 10 days ago, informing general manager Danny Ainge of his willingness to part with a pick if the Nuggets were able to procure Rivers.
Nevertheless, Boston wasn't prepared to start the process of letting Rivers leave, and discussions never went beyond one brief conversation between Kroenke and Ainge, league sources said.


Denver quickly moved onto its current two finalists for the job: Lionel Hollins and Brian Shaw. Both candidates made strong impressions on Kroenke and new Denver GM Tim Connelly in interviews this week, sources said.

This whole situation has gotten so absurd that it's tough to imagine just 10 days ago the Celtics were not even entertaining the idea of parting ways with Doc, but it's true.

Since then the Clippers have asked to speak with Doc, been rejected, had compensation talks with the Celtics revolving around Eric Bledsoe, had the talks stall, had the talks re-ignite around either the Clips taking back an additional contract or throwing in a 2nd pick, had the talks die, had the talks re-ignite again after CP3 pushed for it, reportedly reached an agreement, had the reported agreement rejected by the commissioner, and then finally the reported agreement that the teams may have had never existed in the first place and LA is now somehow asking the Celtics to just give them Rivers. I mean what the hell.

As an aside, if I'm Doc I'd rather be in Denver than Los Angeles. The Nuggets have an awesome, young, deep team that seems primed for a breakout. Their first round exit this year was disappointing, but keep in mind that Danilo Gallinari, the teams 2nd leading scorer, tore his ACL late in the regular season. With Gallo back healthy, a stud PG in Ty Lawson, and a trio of good young big men (Farried, Koufos, McGee), Denver's core is much more attractive than the one man band out in LA.

However, that ship has sailed. Denver appears ready to hire either Shaw or Hollins, and Doc appears destined to either head to the Clippers, or return to Boston for quite an awkward reunion.

Then again, with the way this story is going who the hell knows what tomorrow brings.

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