NBA: Boston Celtics Reject Brooklyn Nets Request To Talk To Doc Rivers For Vacant Head Coaching Job

The Boston Celtics have denied the Brooklyn Nets permission to interview their head coach Doc Rivers for their vacant head coaching job.

"Doc has told me he's coming back," said Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge. "I talk to him almost every day about our team and what we are going to do moving forward."

Rivers has three years and $21 million remaining on a contract he signed in May 2011, making him one of the top two highest paid coaches, in the National Basketball Association (NBA), along with the San Antonio Spurs' Gregg Popovich.

Rivers realizes that the Celtics are going to have to go through a rebuilding process as the centerpieces of the team -- Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett -- are getting older.

"Well, I don't think anyone is looking forward to [rebuilding] but I'm willing to do that," said Rivers. "I've had a group that has been very loyal to me, and I think it would have been very easy to just run and go somewhere else and chase something else."

The Brooklyn Nets balked at taking the "interim" tag off coach P.J. Carlesimo's title, who replaced Avery Johnson after he was fired in December 2012. Brooklyn lost to an injury-riddled Chicago Bulls team, in their Eastern Conference first round playoff series. The Nets lost in seven games.

Carlismo does not think the championship pressures that surround the Nets is fair to whomever fills his shoes.

"I wouldn't put that on whoever is lucky enough to get the coaching job," said Carlismo, who is working the rest of the NBA playoffs as an ESPN analyst. "I think it's a team that could win a lot of games. I think it's a 50-win team, a playoff team and a team that could do well, particularly in the Eastern Conference. But to win a championship is a bear."