Doc Rivers admits losing DeAndre Jordan to the Dallas Mavericks was a "wake-up call" for how he approaches front office responsibilities.
"Losing him would've always gnawed at me," Rivers told Yahoo Sports. "But it wouldn't have stopped me. I would've said, 'F--- that, we're going to figure out a way to get this right.' But it also triggered something else for me. It might have been my front-office wake-up call. I was not a pleasant guy to me, or my staff, after I thought we lost him – and even after we got him back. We had a lot of 'come-to-Jesus' meetings.
"I told them, and told myself: 'We've got to get f------ better. I don't care if we don't like how this was done, or we thought there was some injustice. We didn't get him. We've got to be f------ better.'
"And we rolled up our sleeves, and we got better. Listen, maybe it's because when we got here, the team was pretty good and we didn't think we had to get that much better. I don't know why. At end of the day, even the way D.J. did it, it turned out to be a blessing for our franchise. For me, it made me understand fully, 'We've got to do this f------ right, and build this team. It's our responsibility.'
"For our team, it probably fast-forwarded something that would've had to start to happen next week in training camp. … The communication."
The Los Angeles Clippers ultimately re-signed Jordan after he rescinded his agreement with the Mavericks.
