Riley rips resting players in regular season

P a t R i l e y b e l i e v e s h e s t a r t e d a t re n d t h a t h a s become a “travesty.”

The Heat president was coach of the Lakers back in 1983 when the team left Magic Johnson and James Worthy in L.A. for the regular-season finale in Portland. Though not the same as players resting during the first five months of the season, Riley does assume some culpability in a practice that he believes is getting out of hand.

“We don’t rest,” Riley said this week about the Heat. “I don’t believe in it. I think it’s gotten to the point where it’s become a travest y, an absolute travesty. Blatantly. I don’t care how many players you’re resting or who.

“Who are the ones entitled to get the rest versus who doesn’t rest?”

The Heat both benefited from and were hurt by teams sitting players this season as they fell one game short of the playoffs. Miami t wice played Cleveland while LeBron James and Kyrie Irving rested, winning both games in Miami. Then, on the final night of the season, the Heat defeated a Washington team that did not play its starting backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal.

But on that same night, the Heat needed either the Bulls or the Pacers to lose to sneak into the playoffs, and both played teams, the Nets and Hawks, respectively, which rested all their key players.

The Heat have sat players in recent years, most notably Dwyane Wade who was on a “maintenance” program — which some will argue is a fancy word for rest — to preserve his body, and the Big Three, but mostly only late in the season when a playoff spot was secured.

“We don’t rest players. We maintain them, and every guy we can play we will play,” Riley said.

Riley said he was told by Lakers owner Jerry Buss in 1983 that the team was leaving some of its players behind for the game in Portland, which the Lakers lost to finish the season 58-24.

How much did it help? The Lakers were swept by Philadelphia in the NBA Finals.

Riley believes the organization was fined $10,000 for the move and said his secretary was inundated with complaints.

“There had to be 500 envelopes from Portland, manila envelopes, with their season tickets demanding their money back,” Riley said. “So, this goes back a long time. But, not to this state that it is today.

“I t h i n k , Adam S i l ve r, you’ve got to do something about it. ... Let’s just put a little more integrity into the whole concept of rest.”

Which is interesting, considering that in 1990 Riley did it again. He rested Magic and Worthy for a game in Portland on the final night of the regular season.

That year Riley was fined $ 2 5,0 0 0, a n d h e was n’ t happy. “I have an obligation to our management,” Riley said 27 years ago. “I decide who the heck I want to play. If (the league) is going to start getting in the way of who I want to play and when I want to play them, maybe they ought to come out here and put on the coach’s shirt themselves. ...

“I’m sort of beside myself on this. Obviously, a new rule has been made, a new prec- edent set. I didn’t do it out of disregard for the league. I did it for the well-being of our players. They do it in other sports.”

That year the Lakers finished 63-19 and were upset by the Suns in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games.

The difference, though, is that as a coach Riley did not rest players other than in what he deemed “meaningless games” and to prepare for the playoffs. Teams now regularly rest players throughout the regular season, some starting as early as December.