Doc Rivers admires Nick Sirianni’s ‘spirit,’ and has one last message for his texting buddy before Super Bowl

Doc Rivers shot Nick Sirianni a text message about three hours before the NFC championship game, not expecting to receive a response until after its conclusion.

“And bing, there was a text back,” Rivers recently recalled to The Inquirer. “I was like, ‘Whoa, jeez.’ It caught me off-guard.”

This back-and-forth between the coaches of the 76ers and Eagles has been going on for months, in what Rivers jokingly calls a “2020s version of a relationship.” He and Sirianni have never met in person, a product of both coaches taking their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic and their seasons largely running simultaneously. Yet Rivers has enjoyed watching his digital pen pal’s “spirit,” and his impact on the Eagles team that will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

“I just like that he is himself,” Rivers said of Sirianni. “And he’s free enough to allow himself to be himself, instead of putting himself in a [box]. He’s different in a lot of good ways. … You can tell that his team feels that and they buy into that.

“When you get your guys buying into that, you’ve got a chance to win.”

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Rivers, who won the 2008 NBA championship with the Boston Celtics, has long admired football coaches. He built a rapport with New England Patriots legend Bill Belichick while in Boston, and recently visited with Alabama’s Nick Saban when the Sixers were in New Orleans to play the Pelicans while the Crimson Tide prepared for the Sugar Bowl. Rivers appreciates the discipline and motivation required for 11 players to execute on every snap.

Sirianni, meanwhile, has often publicly supported the Sixers through his wardrobe choices. He once wore an Allen Iverson shirt on the field before a game, a Julius Erving hoodie during a practice, and a warm-up jacket at the NFL Combine the day of James Harden’s Sixers debut. He also brought a Villanova mini hoop to the combine as an unconventional way to evaluate prospects’ competitiveness.

Rivers said he first reached out to Sirianni sometime last season, sharing that he watched the Eagles coach’s press conferences and liked his motivational style. Sirianni’s analogy about a flower’s roots growing under the surface as long as players continued to metaphorically provide water and fertilizer — which some outsiders criticized as corny — reminded Rivers of his 2008 Celtics’ “Ubuntu” mantra. That Nguni Bantu word is often translated to, “I am, because we are,” and was engraved on the side of their championship rings.

“I said, ‘That’s good stuff, guys. I know you’re all making fun of it, but there’s a message behind that and the team is buying into that,’” Rivers said of the flower analogy. “I can see what he was saying, what he was doing, because you need metaphors.

“You need things to team-build, and whatever catches your team is it.”

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So the regular texts began. Earlier this fall, Rivers said Sirianni asked him about how publicly to define roles, with Rivers suggesting doing it in front of the full team to avoid confusion and promote internal accountability. They send motivational quotes before each team’s big games. Ahead of the Eagles’ win over the San Francisco 49ers to advance to the Super Bowl, Rivers encouraged Sirianni to make sure his team “was not getting caught up in the [expletive]. The goal’s not done.”

Rivers did not have much advice for how to navigate the two-week build-up to Sunday’s game. But he hopes Sirianni takes this message into their final step toward a title, because it’s what he admires in his fellow coach in the first place: “You’re right where you’re supposed to be,” Rivers said, “and you should act that way.”

And once that championship quest is over, Rivers hopes to finally meet his digital pen pal in person.