Doc Rivers had hinted before the 2010/11 season that this might be his last one behind the Boston Celtics' bench. A year later, he signed a five-year contract extension to remain the Celtics' coach. There are surely a lot of factors that went into Rivers' decision, but one big one cannot be ignored: money.
Doc Rivers Contract Extension With Celtics Makes Him Highest-Paid Coach In NBA
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that Rivers will make $35 million over the next five years. That's a lot of money. In fact, with the retirement of Phil Jackson, Rivers appears to have become the NBA's highest-paid coach.
At an average of $7 million per season, Rivers passes San Antonio's Gregg Popovich and New York's Mike D'Antoni, who both made about $6 million last season. Jackson, prior to his retirement, made $12 million, and while Rivers' new deal doesn't approach that, it is still a lot of money.
To put it in perspective:
Doc made $7 million during his playing career. After this contract, he'll have made more than $50 million from coaching.less than a minute ago via web 
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Chuck
RedsArmy_Chuck
And those figures are actually pretty off. In the last two years, Rivers made $11 million. Add in the $35 million extension, and that’s $46 million right there, not even including his first five years in Boston and his four-plus years in Orlando. Clearly you can say that Rivers fashioned a pretty lucrative post-playing career for himself.
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