MINNEAPOLIS -- Doc Rivers was hoping for the other storybook ending.

You know, the one in which he would be reunited with Kevin Garnett in Los Angeles with the Clippers and they would chase another championship together.

But even Rivers has to admit that his alternate ending wasn't nearly as good as the one that eventually led Garnett back to Minneapolis where his career started 20 years ago.

"I would've loved for him to come to the Clippers and go for another one, but even me, who's competitive as hell, has to say that Kevin Garnett ended up in the perfect spot," the Clippers coach said.

"This is awesome; not only just him returning home, but him in his role of teaching."

The championship that Rivers and Garnett won together with the Boston Celtics in 2008 and the one they nearly won together in 2010 will always bond them together. They almost had a reunion when Rivers was traded to the Clippers two years ago for a first-round pick in this year's draft. One of the initial incarnations of the deal included a side deal that had the Clippers sending DeAndre Jordan and a first-round pick to the Celtics for Garnett, contingent on the Rivers deal going through.

It was a side deal then-commissioner David Stern nixed because such side deals violate league rules. In fact, the NBA banned the Celtics and Clippers from making a deal of any kind for one year as a precautionary measure. By the time the moratorium was over, almost all of the players Rivers coached in Boston were scattered throughout the league.

"I couldn't be a part of that," Rivers said of the trade talks two years ago. "I would be negotiating against myself. That was a tough one. I literally had to stay out. I kept hearing what the Clippers wanted and what the Celtics wanted, and I had to stay out."

Rivers now says he wanted to keep Jordan and not trade him for Garnett, but it's hard to imagine Garnett being included in the original deal if that was the case. Either way, it has worked out for the Clippers with the 26-year-old Jordan entering his prime while the 38-year-old Garnett plays the final games of his career.

"From Day 1 I wanted the team that I saw," Rivers said. "Not a new team, especially with DJ's youth."

Rivers, however, does have a strong affinity for the players and coaches he won a championship with in Boston. He said winning a title causes a blood transfusion between everyone involved, making you brothers for life, a line he first heard from Bill Parcells. He signed Glen "Big Baby" Davis after last season's trade deadline, unsuccessfully went after Paul Pierce this offseason, and held out hope he could get Garnett, Kendrick Perkins or Ray Allen to join him at various times this season.

"I don't know if I was optimistic," Rivers said of getting Garnett this season in a possible buyout situation. "I didn't think they would ever do a buyout. They're in the playoff race and it didn't make a lot of sense to me even though everywhere I read and heard said we were going to get him."

Garnett, who owns a home in Malibu, California, wasn't against joining the Clippers and Rivers. But when the opportunity arose to return to Minneapolis and end his career where it started, it made too much sense.

"Doc had a huge impact on my career, leaving here, teaching us -- all the guys I joined in Boston -- teaching us the true meaning of teamwork, teammates, having some self-pride, playing for the next guy," Garnett said. "It was a great time in my life, times I'll never forget. Monumental times, some of the best times of my basketball career. He's a great teacher, great motivator. It was a great time in my life."

Garnett knows those times cannot be replicated as he tries to do something different with a young team and his former coach, Flip Saunders.

"I know Kevin has great respect and loves Doc as I do, but I think Kevin looked at it and said, 'I want to have an impact in an organization,'" Saunders said. "Having been here, he thought coming back here he could continue having a huge impact in the organization. I think that, more than everything, was the direction he wanted to go."

Rivers and Garnett were never able to reunite after leaving Boston two years ago but that doesn't mean Garnett hasn't had an impact on what Rivers is doing with the Clippers.

"I took a lot from him," Rivers said. "I always think that I took more from him than he took from me. He was good before he got to me. He didn't need me. I just loved his professionalism. I'm sure what he's doing with those young guys, they're starting to realize. I'm sure they probably thought it was fake, like no one could be this intense, no one could be this professional, no one could be this bought in to their team.

"I think playing with them they're going to all learn that [it's not fake]. It's really neat. I thought in Boston he changed our culture. He literally changed our culture. You look at all the things he stands for and he follows through on those things."