Riley wants Heat to finish season
Riley: ‘We found the right players’ and it’s ‘very important’ to complete season
Heat President Pat Riley
MIAMI — At one
President Pat Riley tense.
“It was a great year,” he said in a video released Wednesday by the team.
But in his next breath, he mentioned the need for more.
“I think,” he said, “that’s a very important thing for all of the franchises: complete the season.”
At a time like no other in his 50-plus years in the league as player, coach and executive, Riley spoke about the joy delivered by this season’s Heat, as well of the uncertainty of NBA shutdown created by point, Miami Heat spoke in the past his team has constructed and hopes it gets a chance to compete in the playoffs. the new coronavirus pandemic.
“The COVID-19 is serious,” Riley, 75, said. “The attitude we all have to take as a country is to follow the science of our local, state and federal government and do the best we can.
“People are getting a little bit antsy right now. I get that. That’s human nature, but we have to hunker down until we can make sure everything is safe.”
And yet, with the Heat holding a 41-24 record and the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference, Riley wants more from a roster reworked in the offseason and then again at midseason.
“Everybody would like it, and I know the league would like to complete the season,” he said in the comments taped last week. “And whenever they decide to start it up again, I think that’s a very important thing for all of the franchises: complete the season, even if that moves on later.
“I think we’re all right behind [Commissioner] Adam Silver and him waiting until he launches us back into action. This is where we are.”
A year ago, Riley at this juncture was offering a postmortem to a 39-43 lottery finish. A year later, with the regular season to have ended April 14, he found himself speaking of tangible gain.
“When we started the season, we thought we had something good, especially when we had the opportunity to sign Jimmy Butler,” he said. “We didn’t really know how great Tyler Herro or Kendrick Nunn or Duncan Robinson, Chris Silva at times, a lot of our young guys, Derrick Jones Jr. [were going to be].
“And having Goran [Dragic] and having Jimmy Butler, having Bam [Adebayo] being around for three years, and having Meyers Leonard and his infectious personality, Kelly Olynyk, we had a very, very good basketball team, very well-coached. And I think we proved it on the court, night in and night out.”
Then came a further reshuffle at the Feb. 6 NBA trading deadline, when Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill were brought in, and Justise Winslow, Dion Waiters and James Johnson sent out.
“I’m really disappointed that we haven’t seen the finish, especially after we made the trade,” Riley said. “You bring in Andre Iguodala, Solomon Hill and Jae Crowder, I thought that was going to give us a little bit of an edge going into the playoffs.
“For all intents and purposes, I’m so happy that we turned a lot of things around and we found the right players, the right mix of pickand-roll players, guys that can post up, and really a couple of guys that can really shoot the ball. So we’re happy for that. And we are very optimistic about moving forward in the future with these players.”
With his team idle since a March 11 loss to the Charlotte Hornets at AmericanAirlines Arena, Riley said the focus has turned to the draft and free agency. But even that part of the equation is muddled when it comes to timing elements and which players might re-sign. “We like all of our players,” he said.
“I don’t have much patience — you know me. I want to build another championship team, and we’re close. Maybe we need another player, maybe we need less? I don’t know.
“The point is that we’re right there and we’re a contender, and I’m proud of that.”