A slow offensive start didn’t slow the Heat from taking a 16-point lead in the first half of Max Strus’ return to Miami. Early, Cleveland’s Darius Garland picked up four fouls in six minutes and was neutralized until halftime. Strus fired blanks. Donovan Mitchell was held to one of five makes as he settled for jumpers. And the Heat’s Josh Richardson carried the offense until intermission against the undermanned Cavaliers.

But getting stunned by the zone, plus an inability to defend the arc and prevent dribble penetration, erased the Heat’s lead. Just in the second quarter, it conceded 36 points on 58.3% shooting. Keep in mind, Cleveland was without Evan Mobley, who is its top big and defender, and was absent the services of bench spark plug Caris LeVert.

Jimmy Butler missed a gifted wing triple and two jumpers in front of Tristan Thompson, who forced him to pick up his dribble in frame two. Duncan Robinson bricked three trifectas, two of which were weakly contested. And the Heat had suffered through 13 second-chance points because the Cavs got nastier on the glass.

Craig Porter Jr., one of the undrafted prospects the Heat worked out in the summer, sprayed eight points attacking the rim and pulling up 19 feet away when Jaime Jaquez Jr. got pinned to a screen by Thompson.

By halftime, the Heat surrendered 13 fastbreak points and 10 more after turnovers. Without Richardson’s contributions, the degradation would have commenced in the opening interval, likely before the late fans sat down.

Then Mitchell seized the third quarter with a bombardment of triples and a transition layup to give the visitors a 14-point advantage. The Heat could never recover from that flurry because it turned over the rock seven times in the period, and it uselessly over-helped off the wings and corners against other Cavaliers.

JJJ logged six points in the latter stages of the third when the Heat cleared out for him, but after him, Kyle Lowry was the next impactful Heatle, and he was only attacking from the outside.

In the fourth quarter, Caleb Martin spun past Porter in the lane, splashed a corner triple in his face and scored on Jarrett Allen at the cup. Love converted a few trays, too. And Butler had a tip-in and a roll through the middle, but it wasn’t enough.

When the Heat showed progress, the Cavaliers silenced them with a bucket or trip to the line. Miami couldn’t stop the ball, even when Georges Niang put it on the floor twice.

The dagger came with about 90 seconds left, following Dean Wade’s missed corner banger. Allen flailed his arms for the ball but smacked it back toward Wade, who handed it to Mitchell. From the wing, he broke down JJJ for a four-foot layup that put Cleveland up 11 points.

The Cavaliers won in Miami 111-99. Twenty-two of its points came off Miami’s turnovers, 23 were on the break and it collected four loose balls to zero.

At the postgame presser, coach Erik Spoelstra said his group wasn’t sharp with the rock. “Credit [to] Cleveland, but we were bobbling mis-dribbles, mis-catches, [we were] careless with the ball right out of the gate, even if we didn’t turn it over. That kind of set the tone for the game.”

 

 

 

The Knicks were furious and wanted three first-round draft picks plus $3 million in compensation for Pat Riley abandoning his post. But it settled on one FRP and a million in restitution, letting him and the Heat off easy. For context, in 2000 (five years later), the Minnesota Timberwolves tampered and were reprimanded by the league for salary cap circumvention on Joe Smith’s deal. The penalty was losing five first-round picks (got one back by appeal) with a $3.5 million fee.

Publicly, then Garden president Dave Checketts downplayed a power struggle, but it existed. The Knicks later used the Heat’s selection on Walter McCarty, a 6-foot-10 power forward, in the 1996 Draft, who played 37 games in New York.

Riley was introduced as the Heat’s fourth coach in its brief seven-year existence aboard the Imagination, Micky Arison’s Carnival Cruise ship docked at the Port of Miami. At his presser, he smoothly expressed regret over his New York departure. “I feel badly for the way things went down and what has been said and reported. A lot of people in New York feel like I abandoned them, and that’s just not right. This was a case of standing on principles…”

He was still fuming about his portrayal during the season the next time he saw his ex-colleague and NBA insider Peter Vecsey. When Riley caught up with Vecsey outside of the Heat’s locker room, there was a heated confrontation in front of current vice president of media relations Tim Donovan and a police officer over his print comments, labeling the coach the quitter within, mocking his book The Winner Within.

Riley’s first order of business was to build Rome in a season, trading Glen Rice, Matt Geiger, Khalid Reeves and a FRP to Charlotte for Alonzo Mourning, Pete Myers and Leron Ellis. The Hornets didn’t want to pay Mourning, a superstar center, what he wanted. But the Heat did in 1996, the summer after it got him to a seven-year contract for $105 million, the first nine-figure commitment in NBA history.

In 1995, one of the smaller moves that was later impactful beyond vision at the time was the hiring of Erik Spoelstra as video coordinator.

In year one with the Heat, the new president and coach led it to a 42-40 record, a 10-game improvement over the previous campaign. When he and the team traveled to New York, in his first return to Madison Square Garden on Dec. 19, 1995, Riley was booed by Knicks fans when he took the court with a hint of some cheers at lower decibels. Some faithful followers held signs that read “Pat’s a rat,” “Greedings, Pat,” “Riley – snake of New York,” etc.

The Heat were crushed in that game by 19 points. After it, ex-Riley enforcer Charles Oakley said in the locker room, “He came in here like he was God, waving and dancing… He’s high profile, one of [those] ego things.”

Additionally, that season, the club traded for Tim Hardaway, a three-time All-Star and Chris Gatling to solidify the foundation. In the first round, the eighth-seeded Heat matched up with the 72-win Chicago Bulls and were swept in three matches.

The Heat didn’t stand a chance because its frontline had Kurt Thomas, a rookie at power forward, and Walt Williams, a 6-foot-8 small forward who was a below-average rebounder next to Mourning. Chicago had Dennis Rodman, an all-time glass fiend, plus Toni Kukoč and Scottie Pippen, who averaged 11 boards for the series, denying the Heat extra possessions.

Additionally, the Bulls had Jordan, who was handed his fourth MVP award the next month, going off for 30 points a game. The Heat’s average margin of defeat was 23 points nightly.

 

********

That summer, 6-foot-11 P.J. Brown signed as a free agent in Miami. Following Mourning’s deal, the Heat signed Juwan Howard the same day, but the NBA refused to accept the latter on the grounds that the salary cap was exceeded for his addition. The club then filed a temporary injunction with a state court to prevent Howard from going to another team while it dealt with the league office.

Yet, it soon came to a settlement with the NBA, and Howard stayed in Washington. The Heat released this statement: “The Miami Heat and the NBA have agreed on a settlement in the Juwan Howard case. The Heat will have no further comment in the near future. Alonzo Mourning will remain with the Heat.”

Riley held a conference call with reporters, addressing the offseason. He said he had returned from the proctologist to get the NBA’s 10-foot pole removed from his ass.

In 1996-97, the Heat had its first 60-win season (61) and by mid-Febraury had 38 victories. In the organization’s history (founded in 1988), it had finished only two years with 38 wins or more. On Feb. 14, the team traded Thomas, Sasha Danilović and Martin Müürsepp to Dallas for the talented scoring forward Jamal Mashburn.

In 1997, Spoelstra was promoted from video coordinator to assistant coach/coordinator.

The Heat defeated the Magic in five, then met up with the Knicks, Riley’s old gang for the semis. It was seven outings of high-level defensive basketball, as Miami and New York shot 41% and 42% from the field.

In Game 5 in Miami, Oakley got tossed for shoving Mourning. Then New York’s Charlie Ward was boxing out into Brown’s knee at the free throw line, so he was flipped like a doll on the baseline. John Wallace tried to grab Brown but fell into the photographer’s row with them and it soon looked like a pile after fumble.

Next, Brown, Ward and John Starks were ejected. Miami won that evening and benefitted from suspensions to Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston and Ward in Game 6. The Heat were missing Brown but won without him as Dan Majerle, Hardaway and Mourning got hot against neutered New York defenses.

The Heat won Game 7 behind Hardaway’s 38 and Mourning’s 22 points with 12 rebounds and became the sixth team in NBA history to recover from a 1-3 deficit in a series. Afterward, in the East Finals, Riley and the squad were vanquished by the reigning champion Bulls in five.

That defeat depressed Riley. Following the series, he said the Heat were a team with hopes and dreams, “Then you run into the Bulls and reality sets in even though you don’t want it to.”

His third year down south was another success in the regular season, as the group won 55 games, but it had a rematch with the Knicks in round one of the Playoffs. The bad blood was still there. In Game 4, Mourning and his former teammate Larry Johnson were entangled while going for a rebound off Hardaway’s top-of-the-key jumper, and then it instantly turned into fisticuffs between them.

Riley and Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy tried to break it up, but the latter took a hit and held on to Mourning’s leg. At that position, J. Van Gundy could have been killed if a knee flew into the face or temple, but it strangely helped separate the brawlers who never connected on any blows aside from his. But as soon as he was helped up and held back, he was the one of the toughest guys on the court.

Mourning’s lack of self-control bought him $20K in fines and a suspension for the next match. At one point, when tensions were cooling, Mourning wanted another fade with what appeared anyone. Post-league announcement, Riley said he wasn’t surprised because it was consistent with its recent practices.

At the close out Game 5, the Heat’s offense was impotent without Mourning and failed to log more than 23 points in any quarter.

A year later, Riley and the first-seeded Heat were hosting the eighth-place Knicks. For New York, Ewing was 36 years old and not the same player following a wrist injury to his shooting hand in December of 1997.

For Miami, Hardaway looked spent, and Mourning had no sidekick as the series headed toward a fifth match. On May 16, 1999, the game came down to the last possession- with the Heat up one and four seconds left, Houston caught a sideline inbound at the top, broke a trap and made an elbow floater that kissed the front iron before falling in.

Straight up, the Heat was beat on its floor, and Riley said after it, “This hurts a lot more than last year (1998). Life in basketball has a lot of suffering in it. We will suffer for this.”

What’s noteworthy about this season is that Jordan had retired again. The East had quality teams, but there was no roadblock like him. People within the Heat organization thought the ‘99 team could have made the Finals. That’s why Houston’s shot is so damaging.

Yet it wouldn’t be until the 2000 East Semis that the Knicks put the biggest emotional hurt on Riley. Miami was again a 52-win outfit amid Hardaway’s decline. In February, it picked up Bruce Bowen, a dirty player with defensive skills, off waivers, and he turned into the eighth man (minutes averaged) of Riley’s rotation.

This iteration of the Heat was top-five in defensive rebounding and blocks while playing at the third-slowest pace in the NBA. In the Playoffs, it swept Detroit and met for its fourth rendezvous in five seasons with the Knicks.

The duel lasted another seven matches and was decided in its closing seconds. Hardaway had been a dud for the series and inefficiently emptied the clip in Game 7, shooting 30% from the field. Still, Mourning carried the club, dropping 29 points on 12 of 20 tries, but it wasn’t enough.

Keep in mind, the Knicks’ two leading scorers, Latrell Sprewell and Houston, shot ghastly percentages (below 40% of attempts for the series) throughout and combined for 10 of 30 makes in Game 7.

With 92 seconds left, the Heat was up 82-81 when the Knicks dribbled up court. Trying to force a turnover, Mourning blitzed Sprewell turning a screen but his show and recover was late, and Ewing dunked to give New York a one-point lead. Coming down the other way, Mourning was doubled in the post, tossing it back out, but Mashburn missed his ffadeaway in the lane.

The Heat were fortunate to get another attempt, but Hardaway wasted it, taking a reckless runner in the paint. Mourning tried to save it, but Sprewell contested and forced a jump ball that Miami won, and Riley called the team’s last timeout.

The best shot the Heat got off a sideline inbound was a leaning jumper by Clarence Weatherspoon. The Knicks threw the ball into oblivion on its check-in with two seconds left, winning by a point, in the Heat’s new home, American Airlines Arena.

The hosts were humiliated. Riley didn’t want to speak to anyone, team or media, and walked directly to his office. The players in the locker room were so despondent some could barely look reporters in the face. Many on that team knew that the group was done and couldn’t go further. Mourning then walked into Riley’s office, summoning him, “Get up and go talk the fucking team.” At that moment, the pupil was the coach, and his order followed.

In the offseason, Riley tinkered with the build (Mourning & Hardaway), trying to squeeze enough juice out of it for one last try at the title. To reload, he traded for Brian Grant, and got rid of fan favorites Mashburn and Brown, along with Otis Thorpe, Tim James and Rodney Buford, in a trade with Charlotte for Ricky Davis, Dale Ellis, Eddie Jones and Anthony Mason (former Riley player with Knicks).

After the moves, the Heat believed it had the best starting five in the league. Riley believed the team could get to the Finals for the first time. But that hope shattered quickly.

When training camp started at FAU, Mourning was absent from the scrimmage. He had failed a physical and was later diagnosed with kidney disease after seeing a specialist. The condition is called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Aside from losing the team’s best player, Riley was devastated because Mourning was his most trusted disciple.

It was common for reporters to hang around the team, ask Mourning questions, and Riley-isms to fall from his lips.

When Miami’s center learned of his condition, he asked after his biopsy, “Doc, am I gonna die?” He was told there was no cure and to expect to be on dialysis within a year. Surviving became Mourning’s primary objective. World-class treatment and his diligence assisted his recovery, and he was miraculously able to return with 13 games left in the season.

That year, the Heat performed way above expectations without Mourning, who was afflicted in his prime, winning 50 games. Mason had his top season, earning an All-Star selection, too. But when Mourning came back, the flow of the offense changed and Mason’s role was affected to the point he quit on the team. The Heat lost in three to Charlotte, led by ex-Heatle Mashburn in the Playoffs and the Mourning-Hardaway build was over. The quiet rebuild began.

Hardaway was moved for a second-round pick (Matt Freije was chosen) and a trade exception. Mason wasn’t retained either.

The Heat won 61 games over the next two seasons, Riley’s last before sticking with president duties (for the time being), which put it in position on draft night to select Caron Butler (10th) in 2002 and Dwyane Wade (fifth) in 2003. In 2002-03, complications with Mourning’s condition returned in the last year of his deal, which forced him out. He eventually got cleared to play the next campaign (2003-04) but did it as a New Jersey Net.

Riley named Stan Van Gundy as his successor.

Wade quickly showed he was the Heat’s future and best player. After his rookie season, Riley dealt for former MVP and three-time champ Shaquille O’Neal, who Jerry Buss didn’t want to pay long-term over Koby Bryant. Moving Lamar Odom, Grant, Butler, a future FRP (Jordan Farmar) and SRP (Renaldas Seibutis) cloaked the Diesel (O’Neal) in black and provided Miami one of the most lethal two-man combinations in the NBA with him and Wade.

Suddenly, the Heat were contenders again with the team Riley built for Van Gundy. In 2004-05, the Heat advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals but lost in seven. Wade missed Game 6 with hurt ribs while the Heat was up 3-2 in the series.

Next season, the Heat stumbled, winning 11 of its first 21 games. Van Gundy was then replaced by Riley, who came down from the executive chair and didn’t want to. The move happened because the relationship with Van Gundy and O’Neal had soured with the player quitting on the coach.

Miami finished the campaign with 52 victories and reached its first NBA Finals, defeating last year’s rival Pistons en route, too.

Against the Dallas Mavericks, the Heat lost the first pair and was down 13 points with less than seven minutes left of Game 3, but Wade’s eruption saved the team. When Miami took a 3-2 lead, Riley ordered the group to bring one change of clothes and inspected everyone’s baggage before the flight to ensure everyone was as committed.

The Heat captured its first title in Dallas behind 36 points by Wade. Riley hadn’t stood on the winner’s stage for 18 years but did then and said, “I really believed it was our time. We talked about it all year. We got 15 strong, that’s what’s in the pit…”

He tried to run it back with that group, but O’Neal was now 33 and considerably heavier, while the group’s chemistry was weak. His players won 44 outings but were swept by the Luol Deng-led Bulls. The most memorable part of the season is Riley clapping his troops off the court- ridiculing them for turning into fat cats living off last season’s achievements.

His career on the sidelines lasted one more year- a miserable endeavor with 15 wins and Wade missing 31 nights. Riley then promoted Spoelstra as head coach on April 28, 2008, allowing the president to get back to behind-the-scenes action, which has changed in the last 15 years.

In late June, the Heat used the second pick in the Draft on Michael Beasley, who played 171 games before getting traded to make room for big fish in free agency 2010. Riley liked the NCAA rebounding leader and First Teamer of the Big 12, but other voices within the organization pressed for him.

Beasley was picked over Russell Westbrook (fourth), who won an MVP in 2017 and averaged a triple-double in four seasons. Kevin Love, a champion who is a former rebounding leader with a dependable outside jumper, went fifth. And Brook Lopez, an old-school big who completely changed his game as a veteran and became an elite defender plus 3-point threat, was picked 10th.

Putting Beasley on the roster over Westbrook and Lopez in the short term made Spoelstra’s new gig harder than it should have been as a rookie head coach. However, Riley’s next move, looking ahead to summer 2010, when LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Heat player Wade turned free agents, was one the sharpest of his career.

The Heat kept the books clean and still had to convince James, Bosh and Wade to take a pay cut, but it did and overnight, went from mediocre first-round exit to perennial contender and the NBA’s most hated.

 

How disliked was this group?

They were booed in every arena. Objects were even thrown at them. And one league exec broke decorum years after James, Bosh and Wade joined forces by talking smack. During the 2013 campaign, then Celtics president of basketball ops Danny Ainge criticized James for complaining about calls in a loss to Chicago.

When Riley got word his player was getting dragged, he released this statement through Heat PR. “Danny Ainge needs to shut the fuck up. [Ainge was the] biggest whiner going when he was a player. I know that because I coached against him.”

In the 2011 Playoffs, the Heat overwhelmed Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago and returned to its second Finals. It ended up being a rematch with Dallas that Miami lost after a 2-1 lead. The Mavericks converted 41% of its 3-point attempts and lived at the charity line, taking 26 freebies a night. Most notably, James wasn’t himself, refusing to attack the basket and finishing with eight points.

The Heat wouldn’t bring the Larry O’Brien trophy back to Miami until the next Finals, defeating Kevin Durant and Westbrook’s Oklahoma City Thunder in five games. To keep that team fresh, Riley signed Ray Allen, then the NBA’s leader in 3-point makes, as a free agent in summer 2012 for three years at over $9 million.

Adding Allen was one of the most significant signings in the organization’s history because he saved the team in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, facing off with the San Antonio Spurs. It also helped that coach Gregg Popovich committed one of the all-time arrogant decisions in NBA lore by sitting Tim Duncan, the Spurs’ best player and rebounder, thinking the game was over.

After James had dominated the fourth quarter, Miami was down three points, and he attempted a left-wing triple to tie. Bosh grabbed the rebound (the most important play of his career), dished it to Allen, and his 3-pointer banged. The Heat subsequently won in overtime and then Game 7 two nights later.

Winning with this group still didn’t make Riley sacrifice his rigid ways, even at age 68. On an off day in Los Angeles, Mario Chalmers, Allen and James wanted to hang out in Las Vegas. Riley didn’t permit them to leave the team.

In the build’s last season together (2014), James wasn’t a fan of management waiving Mike Miller, one of his favorite teammates. He was also annoyed that he’d learn from reporters, instead of being kept in the know, that his partner, Wade, would miss a game. He wasn’t having as much fun without Wade for over a third of the year. Additionally, the ramifications of Wade’s decline meant his voice wasn’t as powerful in the locker room as it used to be.

The Heat still made the Finals but were destroyed by the Spurs- a group motivated by coming seconds away from Miami’s last trophy. That team ended the Big Three era.

In the summer, James left for Cleveland, shocking the upper echelon of the Heat because it had delivered on its important promise to make him a champion. The question asked was, “Why did he leave?”

The Heat re-signed Bosh to a max and Wade to a shorter deal post-James’ departure, desperate to keep some of its DNA. The former would have his career cut short by blood clots, which affected him in the last two seasons while he was still an All-Star. He wanted to play after that but was denied by Heat doctors. He never balled in a meaningful game again.

Bosh’s first issue with blood clots came two days after the Heat traded for Goran Dragić, a Third-Team All-NBA guard in 2014, who was unhappy in Phoenix. Dragić’s presence next to Bosh, was supposed to eventually be a lethal two-man option, but it didn’t get to share the court long in 2016 either.

Wade got healthier than 2013-14 for two seasons, but disputes over a long-term deal broke his heart. In the summer of 2016, the Heat giving headache Hassan Whiteside the big bucks first upset Wade because he thought he should be the priority as the leader. When he was looking for his payday, he saw the Heat was attempting a Hail Mary for Durant, who he knew wasn’t coming to Miami.

Wade, a franchise legend, left in free agency to play for his hometown Bulls because Riley went cold on him. The departure ended up helping the Heat because in Chicago, Wade realized how unserious the organization was and convinced Jimmy Butler there were better teams to play for.

Between 2014 and 2019, the Heat failed to make the Playoffs three times. But its fortunes changed starting with VP of basketball ops Andy Elisburg’s chat with Cavaliers president Koby Altman about bringing back Wade for the low in 2018. Nineteen months after he left, Wade was back for the price of a SRP.

Next, in the 2019 offseason, after Wade’s retirement, Riley and his lieutenants pulled off a four-team trade that brought J. Butler, its current star, to Miami.

It shouldn’t go unnoticed that Miami missed on a superstar in the 2015 Draft. With the 10th pick, the Heat selected Justise Winslow, who many projections had as a top-five guy over Devin Booker, who is currently one of the three top guards in the NBA.

Riley and the Heat made up for that blunder by getting Bam Adebayo, an elite defender and mid-range shooter with the #14 pick in 2017. In 2019, it struck gold again at #13, choosing Tyler Herro, a versatile scoring guard. These two players are part of the core of the current group that’s gone to two NBA Finals in the last four years.

And recently, the Heat selected Jaime Jaquez Jr., 18th, and he has been the steal of the Draft.

But where does this leave Riley at age 78? He once said that he and his wife would exit stage left when Miami wins the next one. At present, the Heat is a quality team but not as loaded as some others in the NBA, putting his group in a similar spot to his former Knicks and the Mourning-Hardaway build.

But why should anyone believe him anyway? Part of the reason he has so many is because he’s cursed with needing more.

 

******

For more in this series on Pat Riley, click on Part 1 as well as Part 2.

Pat Riley’s lust for rings and trophies has annoyed, hurt and inspired others while elevating three separate NBA teams over the last 42 years. The Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, and Miami Heat had some of their best days with him in charge, but his grand accomplishments could have gone unrecognized at the coaching level if not for a tragic bike wreck to Jack McKinney.

“In a way,” Riley responded to Charlie Rose in 1993 when asked if he accidentally stumbled into coaching. “I used to [do] a lot of clinics when I was a player, and I felt very good. I’d be a guest speaker. I’d go to basketball clinics, there’d be a couple hundred kids…”

Yet his work as a player, initially, wasn’t enough to buy him an opportunity on the sidelines or even access to the team he played for. Before Jack Kent Cooke’s sale of the club to Jerry Buss in 1979, Riley was denied entry into the team lounge filled with former players and other VIPs.

It was a crushing blow to Riley, who had devoted his life to sports, and a humiliation similar to what his father felt when fired after years of tireless work in Minor League Baseball. But seeing that as a child accelerated his understanding that pro sports is a field of specialists not many break into or last in.

Eventually, he would turn into an egomaniacal control freak who was referred to as a “heroic figure” in Dr. Jerry Buss’ Hall of Fame speech. As extensive and impressive as his résumé is- winning as a player, coach, and executive and consistently putting out quality teams, it doesn’t come without stains- getting a player injured, pressuring another to perform hurt, drafting the wrong guys, signing questionable characters and getting cheap with a franchise legend.

 

But how did he get there?

As a child, getting the snot kicked out of him by neighborhood bullies in Schenectady, New York, then rechallenging them for another whooping at his father’s orders, eased his fears of contact. Learning about life and grammar from his high school coach, Walt Przybylo, a World War Two veteran, transformed him from a rough-riding teen into a trained contributor to a cause.

“We’d go through school, then at 3:15 [pm], we’d go down to practice…we all just sat there and waited,” Riley said to Rose. “He’d come out, and he would start talking about some subject or some experience he had. He’d talk about one of us, [how] he got a letter from the chemistry teacher. And he’d make a point out of it.”

Riley didn’t value Przybylo’s teachings until later in life after he’d left Linton High School, but at his next stop, the University of Kentucky, he met another disciplinarian who would significantly impact his life. That was Adolph Rupp, the coach of the men’s basketball team.

In Rupp’s program, Riley would play as an undersized 6-foot-4 power forward and averaged 18.3 points per game in his last three years (freshman played JV until 1972). He even competed on the all-white players team that lost against the Texas Western Miners, who were all black, in the 1966 National Championship game.

Eventually, Riley was drafted with the seventh pick in 1967 by the San Diego Rockets. Fewer than two months earlier, he’d been picked by the NFL club Dallas Cowboys as a wideout. In his career, outlandish requests would become the norm. Here is where they began: He told Tom Landry, the coach of the Cowboys, that he wasn’t interested in receiver but in playing quarterback, the position held by Don Meredith, an All-Pro the previous year. Riley hadn’t put on the pads since high school.

He reported to Rockets camp and instantly found out how far behind he was competitively with the rest of the NBA because he couldn’t even get the ball across half-court—his time with that team lasted 177 games across three seasons before he wasn’t protected from the Expansion Draft. Now, his player rights belonged to the newly formed Portland Trail Blazers.

Before he showed up in Rip City, he married Christine Rodstrom in the summer of 1970 while $5,000 in debt. That night was also the last time he saw his father, Lee Riley.

During his wedding, he shared a private moment with his pops, expressing his bitterness about being put on an expansion team. There, he was told not to do what his father did- abandon his goals when it seemed hardest. On the drive out, from the backseat of a red Chevrolet Caprice, Lee Riley stuck his head out the window and repeated the message he always had for his family: “Sometime, you got to plant your feet, stand firm and make a point about who you are and what you believe in.”

Apart from some threads, his only possessions at the time were his ‘67 yellow convertible Corvette, seven vinyl records, a king-size bed, and a plastic plant. Next, he was on his way to Portland, but the Trail Blazers, an outfit that wouldn’t play its first game until mid-October, didn’t want him either and traded him to Los Angeles.

When he happily returned to southern California with his wife, he was told by then Lakers general manager Fred Schaus what he needed to do to make the team: keep Jerry West and Jim McMillian in shape by picking them up full court in practice the days after they logged heavy minutes.

With the Lakers, Riley was part of the 1972 championship team (10th in minutes averaged) that included Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich and West, among others, and won 33 straight games and the city’s first but organization’s sixth.

His playing tenure with the Lakers lasted until two games into the 1975-76 season, but before getting shipped to the Phoenix Suns, Riley got to play with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

When his nine-year athletic career concluded, Riley returned again to Los Angeles before getting hired as Chick Hearn’s sidekick during Lakers’ broadcasts. In the meantime, Riley was habitually lounging in the sand, staring at the Pacific Ocean, or engaged in a beach volleyball match with Chamberlain.

As Hearn’s right hand, he provided timely analysis and handed out boarding passes to the players.

 

 

********

Fast forward to the 1979-80 season, beginning with the Lakers winning nine of its first 13 matches. Jack McKinney, a five-year NBA assistant with 15 more between high school and college, was the head coach who replaced West. He had experience already for a season with Abdul-Jabbar in 1975, when both were in Milwaukee. His right hand, Paul Westhead, played three years at Saint Joseph’s and was a coach at La Salle University for nine more.

But on an off-day in Palm Springs on Nov. 8, 1979, while on a ride over to play tennis with Westhead, McKinney’s bicycle malfunctioned when he tried to brake, thrusting him forward for a nasty slide on concrete that caused a severe head injury.

The next night, hosting the Denver Nuggets, Westhead took over, and the Lakers won in overtime 126-122. McKinney wasn’t going to come back soon, so within the week, Buss permitted his replacement coach to hire an assistant. He picked Riley, who had no similar relationship with him as he did with his mentor, McKinney.

At first, Riley was indecisive and needed a week to think about jumping from booth to bench. It helped soothe his fears that Hearn allowed it and promised he’d have his gig back when “McKinney returned.” His first game on the bench as a coach was on Nov. 27, 1979, for the team’s trip to Utah. The Lakers, using McKinney’s playbook, won by four points that night and took seven of its next 10. By the All-Star break, it had accumulated a 29-13 record.

While Westhead was in charge and especially early, Riley, being a veteran of the league, helped him understand the dynamics of players at the professional level and paid attention to all the details, even those microscopic. He was also in charge of the Summer League team starting in the 1980 offseason, but Riley also credits Westhead as a “lifetime coach.”

He told Rose in his 1993 interview that Westhead was a disciplined man who he absorbed much from. “You realize just how much you don’t know about coaching and drilling and planning and organization until you’re asked to do it. He taught me a lot in the organizational manner. He gave me a lot of responsibility.”

The Lakers finished that season winning 60 games, stormed through the Playoffs with a 12-4 record, and captured the championship in Game 6 of the Finals in Philadelphia. Magic Johnson famously started at center for an injured Abdul-Jabbar, who watched from his Bel Air home. Buss told the press two days (May 13) after Game 4 that Westhead was keeping the job.

During the celebration, while commissioner Larry O’Brien was handing the trophy to Buss, Riley looked into the CBS camera and assured his wife Christine, plus Abdul-Jabbar and his then-girlfriend Cheryl Pistono, that the party would end in Los Angeles with them.

Euphoria lasted for the summer, but skip ahead to April 1981, when the Lakers’ quest to repeat was derailed by Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets in three games. Throughout the campaign, Westhead implemented his “system,” which deviated from the free-flowing attack used previously, or at least, the results did.

Next year, Westhead insisted on keeping his attack style in place, but the players were unhappy, and the team’s vibes soured. In a game in San Antonio against the Spurs without George Gervin, the Lakers were demolished by 26 points. Johnson wrote about his disappointment in his 1983 memoir (published at age 23) that Spurs were not “not that good.”

But then a five-match winning streak started in Houston, which didn’t squash the unhappiness festering with the unit. During a timeout of a game in Phoenix on Nov. 14, 1981, before Norm Nixon could finish offering his observation on needing more movement, Riley screamed at him that the players were the problem in defense of Westhead’s system.

Four nights later, Johnson undercut his bosses, telling the press he wanted to be traded in the locker room in Utah. He had been venting to his camp about it for weeks but finally spilled it. That night, when the Lakers’ bus transported the players to their hotel, Riley uncharacteristically left Westhead alone in the front row and got his own ride. On the flight to Salt Lake City before the game, Westhead sat by himself, too. Players noted it because they were tight, but not so much anymore.

Within hours of Johnson’s outburst, Buss set up a morning meeting with his two execs, Bill Sharman and Jerry West. The decision to let Westhead go, while the Lakers had won five in a row, was finalized there.

Initially, West was Buss’ choice to succeed Westhead, not Riley. Miscommunication between the two led to an awkward presser where Buss said his squad had an offensive and defensive coach with West and Riley. Then West told the press he would work “for and with” Riley, confusing everyone. But when the circus ended, Riley, at age 36, was in command of the players, with West as a temporary assistant.

Instantly, the intensity of Lakers’ practices increased 100 degrees from amateur-level training sessions, said Michael Cooper, a 12-year former player of Riley’s in Los Angeles to Five Reasons Sports Network.

“Our practices totally changed and they got better,” Cooper said. “They got more defensive oriented… more intense, more detailed on what we wanted to do. We spent a lot of time on our half court defense.”

But the most striking change to the Los Angeles club was that Johnson was comfortable and back to his dazzling tricks.

Riley’s first game as head instructor was a 20-point rout of San Antonio on Nov. 20, 1981. After winning six of its first seven, the Lakers removed the interim tag. The newly empowered coach then inserted Kurt Rambis, a hustling, utility goon at power forward about a month later.

Showtime was back, and Riley was picked to coach the West All-Stars, an honor he would receive eight more times in his career.

Yet, even early in his tenure, he was tough on his guys. In March, after a loss to the Chicago Bulls, Riley held a meeting, to address everyone’s shortcomings. According to Johnson in his memoir, he was toughest on Cooper, telling him, “I don’t know where you get the idea you’re a star because you’re not. You’re just a sub. It’s about time you realized that…”

Riley finished berating Cooper with off-color characterizations. A five-game win streak followed.

In the playoffs, the Lakers went 14-2 and snagged its second title in three seasons over the 76ers, and Riley’s first as head coach, but his third total. His players deployed double teams and blitzes that 76ers forward Julius Erving said were used better than any college team after practice at St. Joseph’s College before Game 5 of the Finals.

During the series, Philadelphia coach Billy Cunningham told the press Los Angeles was playing a zone, which was illegal until 2001 and complained about it repeatedly to referee Darell Garretson.

 

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The following season, the Lakers returned to the Finals for another duel with the 76ers, but the East champs had a significant edge. Moses Malone, the reigning back-to-back MVP (previously with Houston), had joined the ‘81 winner, Erving. He also had Abdul-Jabbar’s number. Philadelphia swept Los Angeles to win the title.

Then, in May 1984, the Lakers and Celtics, who had been on a collision course all season, met up for the Finals for the first time since 1969, when Boston prevented Jack Kent Cooke’s balloons from falling after Game 7. The Lakers won the first match in hostile territory and had the second in the bag, but Riley made the biggest coaching mistake of his career at the time, which he’s publicly admitted.

With 18 seconds left in Game 2 of the ‘84 Finals, the Lakers were up 113-111, and Celtics forward Kevin McHale went to the line for a chance to tie. After his first miss, Riley instructed his team to take a timeout and it did following the second brick. Next, James Worthy inbounded to Johnson, who passed back because he was trapped. Worthy then attempted a cross-court feed to Byron Scott that was intercepted by Gerald Henderson for a layup. Boston tied, then won in overtime, later the series in seven outings. In Game 2, LA should have let Boston foul.

Riley and the Lakers wouldn’t avenge defeat until a rematch in next year’s Finals. The Celtics were on record before the series, saying the team they respected the most was the 76ers. Larry Bird, in particular, said nothing gave him greater pleasure than beating Philadelphia.

LA and Boston had the best records in the league, again, and when they met up in the Playoffs, the Celtics flattened them by 34 points. It became famously known as the “Memorial Day Massacre.”

Postgame, Riley said the Celtics were “going on all cylinders.” Privately, he was seething because a role player on Boston’s bench, Scott Wedman, dropped 26 points on an immaculate 11 tries. “Who the fuck is Scott Wedman!?” he screamed at his group, per Jeff Pearlman, author of Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s.

Aside from Boston’s eighth man (in minutes averaged) torching LA, Abdul-Jabbar’s lack of production was of equal worry. He had 12 points and three rebounds, looking as ancient as his detractors claimed at age 38. On the ride to the arena for Game 2, Riley bucked his rigid methods and allowed Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr., Abdul-Jabbar’s father, to ride on the bus with the Lakers.

One of Riley’s rules was that family members didn’t travel with the team, a common practice in the NBA. Yet, others like Red Auerbach, who coached the Celtics from 1950-66 and was strict too, allowed players’ wives to come along.

Abdul-Jabbar responded with 30 points on 57% shooting with 17 rebounds to tie the series back to LA. In the locker room, Riley said without him, the Lakers were an average team. The group would subsequently earn the title in six, and Abdul-Jabbar won Finals MVP.

During the locker room celebration, Riley was asked about the difference from the previous year. He cited rebounding plus the play of Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson being the equalizers. There he also repeated the last words he heard his father say months before he died. “Some time, we have to plant our feet, stand firm and make a point. And we made that point. We took that parquet floor here, and all the skeletons are cleaned out…”

During the offseasons, he also developed the habit of writing letters to his players about expectations for the upcoming year, per Jeff Pearlman. For someone who would eventually become known as the Godfather, this tactic was the equivalent of a street boss telling his top earners how much dough needed to be brought in.

In 1985-86, the Lakers registered another 60 victories, but Abdul-Jabbar’s decline continued. Then, in the Conference Finals, the Houston Rockets’ twin towers of Akeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson were a mismatch for him, plus Rambis at power forward.

That summer, the Lakers drafted A.C. Green and, during the 1986-87 campaign, traded for Mychal Thompson, father of current Warriors guard/forward Klay Thompson, to preserve speed when Abdul-Jabbar sat. Additionally, one of Riley’s important directives was telling Johnson to pick up his scoring. The motivation behind this was lessening the workload on Abdul-Jabbar.

That season, Los Angeles beat Denver, Golden State, and Seattle to return to the Finals for another showdown with the Celtics, the reigning champs who took out Houston the pior year.

The pivotal moment in the series was Game 4 at Boston Garden. Riley’s team came back from down eight points with four minutes left on moves from Cooper, Worthy, Abdul-Jabbar, and Johnson’s baby-hook through the lane to take the lead for the first time since early in the first quarter. The Lakers went up 3-1 in the series that evening. Five nights later, it was closed out in Los Angeles in Game 6.

In the locker room celebrating that one, covered in champagne, holding a handle and with a white towel around his neck like he just stepped out of a prize fight, Riley said the squad was the “best group of guys” he’d ever been around as a coach.

At a pre-media event for the parade, he promised a repeat, which annoyed players, specifically Worthy, because A, he was hungover, and B, he didn’t think that the current achievement was being appreciated enough. “What the fuck did he just say,” Worthy said when recalling events on the Players’ Tribune Knuckleheads Podcast. “You know that’s an automatic target on your back…He knew he had to do something. Not that he was running out of for motivational speeches, but he was getting close.”

Those comments set the stage for the objective in 1987-88. The players took two-week vacations instead of a month and started working out early at the track together, racing each other. In the regular season, the Lakers had its fourth-straight 60-win year (62) with an eight-match advantage over the second-place Nuggets in the West.

In the playoffs, LA made lite work of the Spurs but then engaged in three Game 7s against Utah, Dallas and Detroit. In Game 1 of the Finals, the emerging Pistons, bullies or psychopaths of the court, blasted the Lakers in Los Angeles by a dozen.

In the sixth outing in LA, Detroit held a 3-2 lead, but the Lakers benefitted from one of the all-time lucky breaks thanks to the refs Ed Rush and Hugh Evans. Isiah Thomas had just ripped the hosts in the third quarter for 25 of the Pistons’ 35 points and left in between with a busted ankle but came back. Yet, with 14 seconds left in the game, Detroit’s goon Bill Laimbeer allegedly fouled Abdul-Jabbar’s hook. The refs saw a phantom penalty, but not the big man travel. The Lakers won 103-102.

Detroit lost by three points in Game 7, with Thomas hobbled and only playing 28 minutes. Riley admitted in 2014 that the Pistons were cheated when he said it was a phantom foul.

He and the Lakers maneuvered through a fan-invaded court to the locker room for the party as back-to-back champs- the league’s first since the Celtics in ’68 and ’69. One of the lasting images of CBS’ coverage was him and Johnson embracing for a long hug as champagne poured over their heads for the last time. Yet it wouldn’t be long before Johnson and others within the Lakers grew sick of him.

Part of what’s made Riley successful is that he can’t be satisfied for long. To a group who reached the pinnacle five times over in eight years, his tricks were stale while his ego was out of control.

Naturally, the loaded Lakers, even with Abdul-Jabbar in his final year, registered 57 wins in 1988-89. LA swept through the West Playoffs and before a Finals rematch with the Pistons, Riley wasted Scott in his training camp-style practices. A box-out drill cost the team one of its best perimeter defenders and Johnson’s backcourt partner, who could shoot from distance and pressure the inside, to a hamstring injury called “moderately severe.”

The veteran-filled Lakeshow was a dynasty running near empty, and Riley’s strategy was the equivalent of hitting the gas on the freeway when the “check engine” light turns on.

Strong first and third quarters powered Detroit to a Game 1 win, but Johnson pulled his left hamstring in the third frame of Game 2. He managed five minutes of the next one but was done for the year. The Lakers were swept, and postgame, Riley said Detroit kicked LA’s ass.

Abdul-Jabbar retired that offseason, but that didn’t stop the Lakers from winning 63 outings with Thompson as a starter. But the highs that began in October didn’t last in the Playoffs. The Lakers fell early in round two to the Phoenix Suns in five.

“He had really stretched us thin, as far as practices and getting us hyped up,” Cooper said to FRSN. “It took its toll on us. Guys were like a little leary…”

After winning coach of the year for the first time, the Lakers fired Riley, but Buss let him keep his dignity, publicly saying it was a resignation. His replacement was Mike Dunleavy, a two-year assistant coach with the Bucks.

At the end with the Lakers, Riley, who wasn’t GM, started acting like one, and Johnson was directly involved in the removal, according to retired NBA insider Peter Vecsey.

“He got involved talking about the money they were making, and that pissed them off because it was none of his business,” Vecsey said to 5RSN.

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Mateo Mayorga (@MateoMayorga23) is a basketball columnist for the Five Reasons Sports Network. Stay tuned for Part two and three’s release on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Special thank you to Peter Vecsey for sending the cover photo.)