I’ve never seen the public opinion of a player change so quickly as when Austin Rivers put up a gritty playoff performance for the short-handed Clippers after getting his face demolished. Prior to that, his career had been a running joke since the day he got drafted and even before. Nothing but criticism on efficiency, critcism on nepotism, criticism on his shooting form, everything was criticism.
Then that playoff game happened, and everyone changed their tone, saying how much they had always respected him and that they were tired of everybody making fun of him. I mean, it was a great performance. But it didn’t undo all the crud we had to sit through to get to it.
The pendulum has swung back a little bit, to the place along the continuum of no one caring about him anymore, positive or negative. Clippers fans probably still hate him, but the average fan has new, more exciting things to care about. Like Kevin Durant being a bitch. All other formerly hated players, Rivers included, should get together and get that dude a gift basket, because he has relieved A LOT of heat from them. There’s only so much hate one fan can sustain, and it’s all going to KD the Biggest Bitch in the Whole Wide World right now.