Doc Rivers is pretty much treating Darko like Robin Williams treated Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting”

I think one of the worst things that can happen to a writer is when his references become outdated.

So naturally I elected to go with the “Good Will Hunting” reference, here. Anyway, Doc Rivers was talking about Darko Milicic, and the conversation comes across like a horse whisperer or some sort of counselor. He’s trying to make the bad men in Darko’s basketball past go away. From the Boston Globe:

“You can see that he gets frustrated easy,” Rivers said. “So we’re trying to eliminate those episodes. Our thing right now with Darko is to play forward. From being around for a short time, as a coach I can probably feel he’s played his career backwards. He lives in the past a lot and we’re trying to get him to live in the future. I told him (Friday), the only time I’ll take you out is if you make a mistake and make another mistake because you’re thinking about the last mistake. I won’t take you out for making a mistake. So hopefully that works.”

via Doc Rivers promises to take mental approach with Darko, Rondo -Celtics blog - Boston Globe basketball news.

Seriously, I get that the movie’s old, but can’t you see Rivers hugging Milicic awkwardly, while telling him “It’s not your fault. Brown/Saunders/Iavaroni/Adelman never trusted you” over and over again?

The reality is that Milicic has struggled for a variety of reasons. And maybe if the NBA had a legitimate minor league system so he could have been brought along slowly, he would have made it. Maybe if he’d just found the right coach. But Milicic has had opportunities with quality coaches and still struggled. Again, Rick Adelman wanted Darko gone before Michael Beasley. Think about that.

He wouldn’t be the first guy to find success with the Celtics where he had failed elsewhere. And they need a legitimate center in the worst way. But it’s one thing to talk about the mistakes in preseason. It’s another to live with them in the regular season, and Rivers isn’t in a position to allow a whole lot of growth and development. A standard’s still set for the Celtics’ season.

We’ll see if Milicic can take this newfound support to establish himself, or just how far Rivers’ patience goes.