Pat Riley defends the Heat

• friendfromlowry

  http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5555415
  
  You know what the biggest surprise is? That he's actually not going to coach. For the past 6-7 years, it's been him coming and going as coach depending on how talented the team is. If they suck, he doesn't want any part of it.
  The question of the season shouldn't be 'Will the Heat win the title or not' -- it should be 'If the Heat win the title, will Riley be coaching or not' -- I say he will be.
• Al Bundy

  friendfromlowry;478985 wrote:http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5555415
  
  You know what the biggest surprise is? That he's actually not going to coach. For the past 6-7 years, it's been him coming and going as coach depending on how talented the team is. If they suck, he doesn't want any part of it.
  The question of the season shouldn't be 'Will the Heat win the title or not' -- it should be 'If the Heat win the title, will Riley be coaching or not' -- I say he will be.

  
  I wouldn't be surprised if he becomes the coach at some point during the season.
• enigmaax

  friendfromlowry;478985 wrote:http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5555415
  
  You know what the biggest surprise is? That he's actually not going to coach. For the past 6-7 years, it's been him coming and going as coach depending on how talented the team is. If they suck, he doesn't want any part of it.
  The question of the season shouldn't be 'Will the Heat win the title or not' -- it should be 'If the Heat win the title, will Riley be coaching or not' -- I say he will be.

  
  This is dumb. He coached through two horrible seasons (36 and 25 wins) and then quit to focus on being a GM. Smart move considering he wasn't getting it done on the court (he would have fired any other coach after those two seasons, why wouldn't he step down himself?).
  
  Then he put the pieces in place for a title run and the team was barely above .500. Again, why wouldn't a GM who feels a potential title team is not performing replace the coach? It just so happens that he was a worthy coach and he proved it by taking that same team to the title. Damn, what an ass!
  
  And then once again, they completely tanked. So once again, why would he keep coaching if he wasn't getting the job done when he wouldn't let anyone else survive the 15-67 season. The unique thing is, he took the lumps himself for the sake of his own long term plan that he's looking to pay off this season.
• Trueblue23

  

  Riley is a douche. I doubt LeBron and co would want any part of playing for him.
• friendfromlowry

  enigmaax;479626 wrote: The unique thing is, he took the lumps himself for the sake of his own long term plan that he's looking to pay off this season.

  
  Yeah, real unique when the Clippers, Knicks, Nets were all tanking, too.
• enigmaax

  friendfromlowry;480564 wrote:Yeah, real unique when the Clippers, Knicks, Nets were all tanking, too.

  
  But he put the L's on his own coaching record instead of setting someone else up for failure. If he was really just looking to coach when they are talented, he would've stepped aside before the 15 win season and then took over once he put together a better team. He did the exact opposite in both cases - he coached the worst year or two then handed a championship caliber team over to someone else. The first time, the coach who had gold handed to him was underachieving so Riley stepped back in.