What team did Doc Rivers coach at the start of the 1999 NBA season?

Doc Rivers coached the Orlando Magic at the start of the 1999 NBA season. It was his first NBA head-coaching job after he retired as a player and worked as a television analyst for NBA on TNT.

Rivers joined Orlando during a major rebuilding period. The Magic had moved on from several established stars, but Rivers helped create a hardworking team identified by the slogan “Heart and Hustle.” Orlando began the 1999–2000 season 15–11 and finished 41–41, narrowly missing the playoffs.

The season was still a personal success for Rivers: he won the 2000 NBA Coach of the Year award in his first year as a head coach. He remained with Orlando through the beginning of the 2002–03 season, when the team dismissed him after a 1–10 start.

A common mix-up is confusing Rivers’s first coaching team with the Boston Celtics, whom he later led to the 2008 NBA championship. His coaching career began with Orlando, not Boston.