Having re-signed with the LA Clippers for $35 million over three years this past summer, Austin Rivers feels that his time to shine in the NBA has come, at long last.
And the 24-year-old flatly rejects the popular assumption that he’s benefited greatly playing for a team his father Doc coaches and presides over.
Austin Rivers thinks he's ready for the NBA's fast lane- and he's using a @Ferrari to get there. My story: https://t.co/7ojUgiJrD2
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) October 25, 2016
Rivers insists that he’s earned everything he’s gotten so far in his career.
Per the OC Register:
He finished last season with new-found respect, the result of his stellar performance in the Clippers’ final playoff game. He scored 21 points, grabbed six rebounds and had eight assists while leaving plenty of blood in Portland after an errant elbow. A moon-shaped scar around the outside of his left eye is still visible months later.
“It helped with people respecting me more. I think last season in general, people were like, ‘OK, he can play,’” Rivers said. “I think it was (expletive) that I had to do that anyways because I’ve been killing my whole life. […] So I had a couple of years where I struggled? So many players do that,” he said.
And for people who think he stayed because he’s had it easier playing for his father? Well, Austin politely disagreed. […] “It’s the complete opposite. People who think that are (expletive) idiots. It actually gets me angry,” he said. “You can say it. ‘People are idiots.’ You can write that one down. I haven’t played for him my whole life, so it’s not like I had it easy. The whole rest of my career – when I was still successful – the No. 1 player in high school, one of the top five, top 10 players in college at Duke. I wasn’t with my father. I haven’t had it easy.”
