Cote: Heat’s Riley is still fighting for career finish Shula never got | Opinion
There was elegant defiance this week as Pat Riley in an opening statement answered the question before it could be asked at his annual season-ending media session.
“I’m not gonna retire, I’m not gonna resign, I’m not gonna step aside,” said Riley at age 81. “When I came here almost 31 years ago, I have the same attitude now that I had on the Imagination. I want another parade down Biscayne Boulevard.”
The Miami Heat’s coach-turned-longtime club president has orchestrated three of those, in 2006, ‘12 and ‘13, but it’s been a minute as the kids say. The last few seasons in play-in purgatory and this one out of the NBA playoffs entirely have made the last parade seem ever-distant and cast the next one in doubt.
The cruise ship Imagination, then at the forefront of Heat owner Micky Arison’s Carnival line, quietly was retired in 2020, sent to Aliaga Ship Recycling plant in Turkey, dismantled and sold for scrap.
No cruel metaphor, that. Riley sails on, prow forward, fighting to avoid the Imagination’s unceremonious fate, not quitting, not wishing to be retired, but battling time. He also is fighting the notion of tanking: intentionally losing to backdoor into a very high draft pick and maybe luck to land the next Victor Wembanyama.
“I’m not gonna change. I’m not gonna try to lose. I’m not gonna tank,” he said. “I can’t stand the word. I will quit if I ever get ordered to go down that road.” Instead, Riley said he’d be “as aggressive as hell to try to make the team better.”
To many Heat fans, to most I would hope, Riley remains the G.O.A.T., the Godfather, but to likely a number growing during the past few years he may be the aging ace who’s lost his fastball. The next parade, the next whale — maybe Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer? — is the brass ring to make everything right. To turn back time.
After an awful, embarrassing playoff exit two seasons ago the Heat improved by six wins this season and had the highest offensive rating in club history. Miami has its best cast of young players in ages led by with Kel’el Ware, Nikola Jovic, Pelle Larsson and Jaime Jaquez Jr.
There’s a lot to like moving forward with the best coach in the league in Erik Spoelstra, who will someday surely succeed Riley as club president. But nothing in this season was nearly enough — not when the standard is a parade down Biscayne.
Riley being “aggressive as hell” to make the Heat a contender again means no player on the roster is off-limits in a trade except centerpiece Bam Adebayo. Riley calls Adebayo the team’s “culture carrier,” says, “I want to build this around Bam.”
He jokes he would not trade Adebayo “unless somebody gave me eight picks and Wembanyama.”
Riley’s status as an NBA living legend is nationwide, Los Angeles to Miami, and it is secure. But he still fights to keep the rust off his name.
Watching Riley this week made my mind wander back some 30 years, to a comparable NFL legend, and how it ended for him.
It didn’t end right.
Riley and Don Shula have been the towering twin titans in South Florida professional sports history when it comes to coaching or management, and it is remarkable the timeline. It’s as if one handed the baton to the other.
Riley’s arrival was announced aboard the Imagination on Sept. 2, 1995, a franchise-changing epiphany.
Shula’s final game as Dolphins coach was Dec. 30, 1995, a playoff loss in Buffalo.
A Sports Illustrated cover story at that time said, “Miami loves Pat Riley but wants to give Don Shula the boot.” Riley said he was embarrassed by that.
Jimmy Johnson arrived as Shula’s replacement less than two weeks later, on Jan. 11, 1996.
Johnson, a champion with the Hurricanes and in Dallas bringing the Shula era to an end was seismic change. Ostensibly it was cordial. It was not, really. Shula “retired” but not by choice. Then-owner Wayne Huizenga was enamored with Johnson, and so were many Dolfans, and understandably so.
Still, they bum-rushed Shula into an all-but-forced retirement. He was bitter. He never forgot it. Near then end of Shula’s life, as age sometimes favors honesty over tact, any mention of Johnson’s name and the old coach would say “Jimmy Who!?” with a crooked smile.
I was there for Johnson’s introduction that day in early ‘96 at the club’s Davie training facility and only three or four fans were across the street holding a couple of signs thanking Shula. Sort of sad, it was.
Shula never got a proper farewell, a public event to say thanks. The last of two Super Bowl wins had been in 1973. Memories fade. People forget.
Almost fittingly, when Shula died at age 90 on May 20, 2020, Covid had just started to rage, the budding pandemic swallowing everything. There was only a very small private funeral at a Catholic church, mourners separated safe distance from each other in the pews. As when he “retired,” there was no public event, no collective thanks.
“There was no better man or coach in the history of the profession than Coach Don Shula,” Riley said. “He was tough, courageous and an authentic leader with great integrity in his pursuit of perfection, which he achieved! I followed his coaching philosophies with great eagerness since moving to Miami, and my respect for him helped mold me not only as a coach, but also as a man.”
Shula never got the proper goodbye he had earned in an epic career. His arrival in 1970 changed the trajectory of a new franchise — gave it a trajectory. The two Super Bowl wins that soon followed included still the only Perfect Season in the sport. Shula drafted Dan Marino. His 347 total coaching victories still are the most in NFL history.
Yet in my last interview with Shula, in his office full of mementos at his Indian Creek home, there was a long pause when I asked if he had any regrets. He did not mention that his coaching career did not end on his terms. He did allude to the last 22 years of that career failing to bring the elusive third Super Bowl ring despite having a record-setting quarterback.
“I wish we could have won one for Dan,” he said.
Now, the man who took the baton in South Florida sports from Shula some 30 years ago is 81 now, wishing for an elusive fourth championship parade down Biscayne Boulevard, still fighting to see it happen.
I hope Pat Riley gets it. I hope he gets the career crescendo that Shula never did.
