Pat Riley challenges fans to be better. To be appreciative and understanding of the difficulty of being a consistent NBA franchise. He does that all the time at his end-of-season press conferences. In 2014, he challenged Lebron James to not leave the team after losing so bad to San Antonio, i.e. “If you got the guts.” Now, he tells fans to “be better fans” because the team is doing all they can — developing, coaching, competing.
Riley’s comments
Even the current playoff teams can’t escape fan demands when they lose. The fans demand teams win all the time. Pat Riley talked about how the Heat are in a better position today financially to make improvements then in the last five years. He also mentioned that the Heat’s young players are very valuable and important — Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez, Jr., etc.
The big problem is that the Heat have stagnated for the last four years. They have become “eternally bound” to be in the play-in tournament. Riley discussed that the team was in the sixth seed before the trade deadline this season with the current roster. He told Ira Winderman, that there were “moves” that were very close to being done that weren’t divulged to the general public.
The Heat will never “tank their season”
Riley said that “it is not in his DNA” to willingly lose. The team will always stay competitive. He mentioned the effort of the Heat in the 9 v 10 game where they competed until the last play. In short he said, “the team wasn’t good enough.” But, as a professional basketball franchise, they will “begin again” and start preparing for next season.
A reporter asked a very good question about Coach Spoelstra’s reluctance to use the “double big lineup” of Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware. Riley’s answer was that he liked the pairing. He vaguely said recommended that Spoelstra “stay with the pairing” or not but to not be reluctant. Spoelstra used the Bam-Ware lineup more towards the end of the season (because Ware learned to meet expectations.)
According to the website, databllr.com, the Bam-Ware pairing played 461 minutes together this season. They had a great defensive rating. Ware by himself was poor defensively with Bam off the floor.
Basketball’s “Circle of Life”
Riley commented that in today’s NBA — “you have to have talent to win in this league.” He then said that the young players they have played very hard. “The rub” of the two ideas is that a lot of the young players don’t get a chance to make mistakes and develop. Riley’s “bottom line” in the press conference is that the Heat are proceeding at a normal pace for a basketball team.
He obviously didn’t use the press conference to present a future plan to reporters and fans. “Tanking” is a strategy but it is tricky. In the Indiana Daily student paper, an opinion by Jack Davis performs a forensic analysis of the Pacers season and future. The keyword repeated through the article, “Patience.”
The Sacramento Kings “tanked” a lot of their season to the point that the NBA investigated them for on-court decisions that led to suspicion. The NBA, per Barstool Sports, realized that the Kings weren’t tanking, they didn’t know what they were doing. The Sacramento fanbase is still dedicated but they are psychologically broken. Pat Riley’s answer is that “the team will keep competing until they start to win.”
