Bucks coach Doc Rivers is 1 of 8 coaches in NBA history with at least 1,100 wins.
One coaching milestone down, one to go.
This week or, well, soon.
With Milwaukee’s 123-113 victory Monday night in Charlotte, Bucks coach Doc Rivers moved into sixth place on the NBA’s all-time list of coaching victories. Rivers, in his 27th season and with his fifth franchise, won for the 1,176th time, breaking a tie with George Karl.
Next up: Indiana’s Rick Carlisle, who will reach 1,000 regular-season victories with the Pacers’ next triumph. Their last came on Dec. 8 vs. Sacramento, which means his team’s current nine-game losing streak has Carlisle stuck at 999 like a holiday flight on a snowbound tarmac.
Indiana faces Orlando at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Wednesday (3 p.m. ET, NBA League Pass) and is home again Friday against San Antonio. After that, the Pacers play at Orlando Sunday, host Cleveland Tuesday, then travel to Charlotte on Jan. 8. So it shouldn’t be long before Carlisle becomes the 11th member of the elite 1,000 club.
Next closest? The Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra, who has won 805 times in 18 years and will need a few seasons after this one to hit four figures. That’s how important longevity – also known in the coaching profession as survival – is to hitting milestones.
Consider this: Rivers and Carlisle have a total of 2,175 victories in a combined 51 seasons. The 19 current coaches with the shortest service times – from Phoenix’s Jordan Ott and Portland’s (interim) Tiago Splitter in their debut seasons to Philadelphia’s Nick Nurse in his eighth – had won 2,018 games as a group heading into Tuesday night, with a combined 65 years as coaches.
That’s why Chris Finch, in his sixth season as Timberwolves coach, laughed heartily when asked Monday if Rivers’ and Carlisle’s numbers give him targets for his own career.
“You kidding me?” Finch said, cracking up, keeping his 230-172 mark in perspective. “I didn’t come into the league until I was 40. Really, my late 40s to get this opportunity [at 51]. So if I catch those guys, I’ll be about 110.”
He was joking, of course, but if it took Finch another 50 years to win 800 more games or so, at that rate, he wouldn’t be given the chance. Of the coaches with 1,000 or more victories, only San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich did it with one team. Popovich sits atop the list with 1,390.
Jerry Sloan and Phil Jackson coached for two franchises, while the others ranged from three stops up to Larry Brown’s nine. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, especially in a profession in which almost every coach is deemed fireable. In fact, it’s a credit that so many have been so thoroughly re-hireable.
Whereas Rivers’ five stops have been with the Orlando Magic, Boston Celtics, LA Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers and the Bucks, Carlisle has had four (going from the Detroit Pistons to the Pacers to the Dallas Mavericks to back to the Pacers).
Each job change has meant different players, different bosses, different fan bases with different expectations. That last one can change from year to year, frequently presenting the coach with a choice: new style or new ZIP code.
Carlisle: A ‘clever,’ always-evolving coach
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle has 2 NBA Finals trips and 1 NBA championship on his coaching resume.
Carlisle brought a defensive-minded approach when he started with the Pistons as a 42-year-old in 2001-02 and won Coach of the Year honors after a 50-32 season. Later, in his 13 seasons in Dallas, he morphed into a more offensive coach. In that stint, he was leaning on assistant Dwane Casey to caulk the defensive gaps while riding Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Jason Kidd to the 2011 NBA title.
His Pacers 2.0 stint had the team setting franchise offensive records, but it didn’t reach the 2025 NBA Finals until it dialed up its defensive focus. Now Indiana is in a “gap year,” waiting for All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton’s return next fall from a ruptured Achilles injury.
“Just having watched him everywhere he’s been,” Finch said, “he’s maximized the roster. He’s coached teams that are built to win now, he’s coached teams that have been in transition – and I think those are some of his most creative coaching jobs, where he’s pieced together a roster and gotten to the playoffs, whatever.
“Stylistically, what we’ve seen him do, it might be different at all the different stops he’s been at. So he evolves, super-smart, really clever, and he always has his team ready to go and playing modern basketball.”
Pacers guard T.J. McConnell recently told the Indianapolis Star: “I heard something early in my career that it’s the people who adjust to change and whatnot who last the longest.”
Carlisle apparently has been reluctant to discuss his individual milestone with the urgency centered on Indiana’s next victory rather than his 1,000th.
But earlier this month, he did say: “This was never a destination. The journey is to come in every day and try to get the team better, try to get myself better. I do that by hiring great assistants that I can learn from and I’ve been very blessed in that area too.”
Colleagues a fan of Rivers’ path, tactics
Rivers credited his various staff as well. “Honestly, I’ve had some of the greatest coaches as my assistant coaches,” he said after Monday’s game. “From Ty Lue to Tom Thibodeau and all the guys I have on my staff now: Darvin [Ham], Dave Joerger, [Greg Buckner] and all the guys.”
Then there are the players, the No. 1 ingredient to successful NBA coaching. Rivers was the same guy in 2006-07 when the Celtics went 24-58 and lost a franchise-worst 18 consecutive games … as he was the next season, when Boston reached the All-Star break at 41-9 and won the 2008 championship.
“I remember being on a plane with him and they were going through a hard time,” Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan said Monday. “Then all of a sudden they get [Kevin] Garnett, Ray Allen and those guys, and they really took off.”
Heck, Rivers had a Kia MVP-candidate and NBA scoring leader in Tracy McGrady in Orlando, where he, too, was named Coach of the Year in his 1999-2000 debut season. Early in 2003-04, team owner Rich DeVos interrupted a pregame media session in the coach’s office to rub Rivers’ shoulders and announce that the coach was “my guy” despite a 1-4 start.
Ten days later, Rivers was fired. But he was just getting started, with another 1,005 victories since Orlando.
“What I’ve had is really high-character players,” he said. “I’ve had teams that had no stars on it that made it to the playoffs, and it’s more than just character. So, I’ve been lucky. I’ve had a lot of good guys.”
Said Finch: “I’ve always been a fan of Doc’s creativity out of timeouts. … His ability to get shots for his guys at the end of games is really high level.”
In many ways, coaches are like teachers and professors … except with a scoreboard next to their names. Wins and losses fill their resumes and get etched into the permanent record, but the measure of the best teachers comes from the students who have come and gone.
For coaches, it’s the teams and the players.
“Whatever accomplishments happen in life,” Carlisle told reporters, “what you learn after many years … is that other people’s dreams that you may have helped them achieve in one way or the other are far more meaningful than things you accomplish yourself.”
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
