Sage Steele said Doc Rivers sent her direct messages criticizing her for supporting Donald Trump, and said the exchange ended a friendship she once described as personal. Steele made the allegation during an appearance on Dave Rubin's The Rubin Report.
She said Rivers sent “Pages and pages of why I’m such an idiot to be a Republican or conservative and support Donald Trump.” Steele also said, “I’m going to show you later, the DMs from this man,” and said she would rather have talked basketball with him or asked, “How are your kids…?”
The Rubin Report comments
Steele said she used to call Rivers a friend, but said the messages moved the relationship away from basketball and into politics. She said, “I just want to talk basketball with you,” and added that the tone of the messages left her saying, “I’m so disappointed.”
She also said, “that’s what turns people off with sports,” while describing the private messages as part of a broader pattern of public political speech from sports figures. Steele said, “I did too,” when referring to having political opinions, and added, “I just happened to not do it when I was working in sports.”
Doc Rivers and
Steele worked for before leaving the network in 2023, and she said she did not watch an NBA game this past season until the playoffs. Her comments placed Rivers in the same frame as other politically outspoken NBA figures, including Steve Kerr, after she said she had drifted less toward the NBA since leaving.
The story also sits alongside Rivers' public political comments during his brief tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks, when he spoke out against ICE, criticized a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, and narrated a commercial supporting Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Those public positions form the backdrop to Steele's claim that the disagreement reached into private messages.
Rivers blocks Steele
Steele said Rivers later blocked her on social media after the friendship. That left her describing a sharp split between what she wanted from the exchange and what she said he sent: basketball talk, or messages about Donald Trump and her politics.
She said she planned to show the messages later, but the account now rests on her description of what appeared in those DMs and how the relationship ended. Rivers has not been described in the provided facts as responding to Steele's allegation.
