© Rob Gray/Imagn
ESPN NBA reporter Shams Charania released a report this week taking aim at Bucks head coach Doc Rivers as Milwaukee nears the end of brutal season that will end with it missing the playoffs.
But according to Rivers, there’s more to the article than meets the eye.
Charania’s report claimed that Rivers attempted to use his prior accolades to motivate Bucks’ players down the stretch of the 2025-26 season.
“I took teams to the playoffs and to the championship that weren’t supposed to. I thought this was one of them,” Rivers allegedly told players. “Either you’re with us or against us. If you’re not playing hard, we’re not playing you anymore.
“I know everything that goes on in this building.”
However, the players reacted negatively to Rivers’ words, going on a skid that ended any hopes of reaching the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
Rivers, however, says the portrayal of his words is innacurate, and that Charania is just trying to get back him for a joke he made about the reporter prior to the NBA All-Star break.
Doc Rivers Says Shams Charania Has Beef With Him
Rivers appeared on the Run It Back show on FanDuel TV on Friday morning and went in-depth about not only the report, but why he feels like Charania wrote it.
According to the soon-to-be Hall of Fame coach, Charania held a grudge over an offhand joke Rivers made earlier in the season.
“I made a joke before All-Star where I said ‘Giannis should trade Shams.’ Shams took that so personal that he actually called the Bucks and yelled at them to take it down.” 👀
Doc Rivers knew Shams wanted revenge 😱@DocRivers | @MichelleDBeadle | @ChandlerParsons | @TeamLou23 pic.twitter.com/C7zrmsXmeg
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) April 10, 2026
“I made a joke before All-Star where I said, ‘Giannis should trade Shams.’ Shams took that so personal that he actually called the Bucks and yelled at them to take it down,” Rivers said. “The NBA called the Bucks and are like, ‘Shams wants us to tell you this, but we really don’t care.’ And then the NBA posted it! I’ve heard from 10 different people that Shams is going to do revenge article on you guys and on you. And I was like, ‘okay, I don’t care.’”
Now we wait to see if Charania has a response to Rivers’ claims. But if his initial reporting is true, it doesn’t really matter why Charania wrote the article, it’s still a bad look for the Bucks’ head coach.