BASKETBALL

Riley made right decision - for himself and team

Spoelstra is the right choice for Heat; stepping down is the right choice for Riley.

By GREG COTE

gcote@MiamiHerald.com

JOHN VANBEEKUM / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Team owner Micky Arison, right, enters the Miami Heat media room followed by his new head coach Eric Spoelstra, and team president Pat Riley. Riley announced he was stepping down as head coach Monday, April 28, 2008, at AmericanAirlines Arena.

• Greg Cote's blog | Riley steps down
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• Riley steps down, names Spoelstra new coach

Pat Riley, the man who made the Miami Heat matter and then made it a champion, broke the news to his players -- maybe to himself, too -- with a story about Forrest Gump.

This was on April 16 at the Heat's arena, in his pregame talk to the team before what would be a rare victory for Miami in this endless, tortured NBA season. Riley was all but certain he knew then what was finally made public Monday -- that he was ready to stop coaching for good.

He told his gathered team about how Forrest Gump, from the eponymous movie, had begun to run, and run some more, and run farther, and keep running, and never stop running, until soon he was being followed by multitudes of others. ''Like he was a messiah,'' Riley said.

Then suddenly he just stopped running. He was done. He simply said, ''I'm tired,'' the coach told it.

Riley said to his players that day what he imagined Gump was thinking. It was the coach's way of telling his guys goodbye.

''I'm finished with my journey,'' the coach told his team. ``This is yours now.''

Riley on Monday finished his quarter-century journey as one of the greatest, most charismatic and accomplished coaches in his sport's history, service that earned him recent welcome into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

And so the Heat now is Erik Spoelstra's, Riley's assistant coach the past seven years and long his groomed heir apparent.

It is a smart, natural succession, because Spoelstra has earned the chance, but also because Riley has earned the right do what he wishes with the franchise he shaped and defined.

No coach in South Florida professional sports history -- with the solitary exception of Don Shula -- has done more or meant more to us than Riley, 63, the fiercely introspective man who coined the phrase ''There is winning, and there is misery,'' and bore his emotions openly.

`OFFICIALLY RETIRED'

Riley and this decision had wrestled in his soul the past five years before finally the man made peace with it and allowed himself to retire as head coach while staying on as club president.

Does he mean it this time?

''I am officially retired,'' Riley said, smiling. ``Is that good enough?''

Whether he means it has become a fair question that needed asking.

He first stepped down as coach in 2003 but reclaimed his courtside role during the team's 2005-06 season championship run. The next season, he would miss six weeks of games after choosing to undergo knee and hip surgeries. This past season he elected to miss four games to scout players for the upcoming draft.

More and more, Riley seemed less and less devoted to the demands on the coaching side of his dual role.

What in 2003 seemed an emotional decision symptomatic of burnout seems in 2008 like simply a natural evolution. A coach who knew it was time.

''Twenty five years ago I made a promise to myself,'' he said Monday. ``If I could not give all I needed to give to the game, I would step aside. Today, I definitely see I don't want to do this anymore. You have to be excessively warped [to be a coach]. I choose not to put that kind of time and effort in anymore.''

That is not selfishness. That is simply extraordinary candor. That's a man who knows himself better than we know him, and knows his stepping aside was what's right for the franchise he has grown to love.

Riley will limit himself now to procuring players and handing them over to Spoelstra, although the notion of Riley as detached and not being hands-on with his experience and advice stretches credulity.

''Way in the background looking over his shoulder,'' Riley described his new role with Spoelstra.

Meantime, the cycle is complete on the newness of coaches in our Big Four pro sports. Spoelstra takes over the Heat, Tony Sparano begins his first year with the Dolphins and the Panthers are coach-shopping, leaving Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez -- with one year plus a month's experience -- as the sage veteran among our pro coaches.

GOOD SITUATION

Spoelstra, more than you'd think of a man taking over a team that just finished with an abominable 15-67 record, inherits a pretty good situation, actually.

He will have a strong nucleus in Dwyane Wade, Shawn Marion and the likelihood of either Michael Beasley or Derrick Rose with the draft's overall No. 1 pick. He also is poised to seem a genius if only because of the mess he follows.

Miami could go 30-52 and Spoelstra could claim to have doubled the win total. If the team approaches a .500 record, he's getting Coach of the Year votes. If he makes the playoffs, he'll be carried around on the shoulders of a jubilant South Florida.

Riley ceding the coaching reins feels good all the way around, and good for all of the right reasons.

Riley deserves to go out on his own terms and timetable, a luxury that Shula unfortunately did not enjoy. If Pat says, ''It's time. I'm done,'' that's good enough.

Likewise, the Heat will benefit from the change. Spoelstra is on the ascent, very much a Riley protégé but bringing a youthful vigor and a fresh approach his mentor could no longer claim.

With due respect to Riley (and much is due), Heat players will embrace this change. Wade, in particular, has a terrific relationship with Spoelstra, who has earned a reputation for fierce work ethic and preparedness.

Spoelstra as a coach will be what Riley no longer was.

`A PURE COACH'

Desperately hungry. Needing to prove himself by outworking the next guy.

''We've got a pure coach now who's not going to think about sandy beaches and when to get out of it,'' as Riley described his successor.

Spoelstra, single, wed blissfully to basketball, is 37 but looks 27.

''Just give me a few months on the job,'' he kidded, ``I'm sure I'll look much older.''

Oppositely, the halving of his role is bound to have a rejuvenating effect on Riley, who Monday seemed unburdened, somehow lighter.

This man has been running like Forrest Gump, running fast and hard, for a long, long time.

He has earned the right to slow to whatever pace he chooses.