Employers can never be too sure about someone when they are looking to hire someone new, that includes NBA teams as well.
According to a report from the USA Today, before acquiring Lance Stephenson in the offseason, Clippers head coach and GM Doc Rivers made a lot of calls and did a bunch of research on whether or not he should bring in the former Pacers and Hornets swing man.
From the USA Today:
“Rivers, who did not know Stephenson previously, was the first to admit that the Clippers had to do more due diligence than normal. Whereas the normal background check would typically warrant approximately 20 phone calls to people who know the player well, Rivers and Clippers general manager Dave Wohl made 61 such inquiries during their research of Stephenson.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever made more (background) calls for a player in my life,” Rivers said. “We had to make sure, but I’ve got to tell you that I’m really excited. It’s one game (in the regular season), but I think he has a chance to be really disruptive to other teams. And what I love is he gives us another ball handler, and you can see that with the first group.”
In my opinion, and I’m sure many others will agree, if you need to do that much to find out about one person, is it really worth it? It’s not like Lance Stephenson is a star, even though he thinks he is.
In his Clippers debut, Stephenson played 19 minutes shooting 3-5 from the floor, finishing with seven points.
