The Pat Riley Factor

'I am officially retired," Pat Riley told the press on April 28. "Today I am definitely sure that I don't want to do this any more."
[riley]

Skeptical journalists are forgiven if they take a wait-and-see approach to Mr. Riley's announcement. Before the start of the 2003-2004 season, we recall, he stepped down as the Miami Heat's coach to, he said, "fully dedicate my attention to my duties as general manager." His assistant, Stan Van Gundy, was given Mr. Riley's old job and took the team to the Eastern Conference finals of the 2005 playoffs before losing to the Detroit Pistons.

When the Heat started the next season cold -- just 11 wins in their first 21 games -- suddenly Mr. Riley was back after Mr. Van Gundy resigned in order, he said, to "spend more time with my family." (Mr. Van Gundy's family, apparently, lives closer to Orlando, where he became head coach of the Magic.) Whether or not Mr. Riley stays retired -- and a second unretirement would mean displacing the Heat's new coach, former assistant Erik Spoelstra -- now is as good a time as any to sum up one of the most amazing careers in basketball history, a career that has seen its share of drama at every level of the game.

At Linton High School in Schenectady, N.Y., Mr. Riley led his team to a storybook 74-68 upset over New York City's heavily favored Power Memorial on Dec. 29, 1961. The reason the game was such an upset is that Power Memorial was powered by a center named Lew Alcindor. That Mr. Alcindor would go on to an NBA Hall of Fame career as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with the Los Angeles Lakers under head coach Pat Riley is an irony that even a Hollywood scriptwriter would reject. (They collected four championship rings together.)

In college at the University of Kentucky, Mr. Riley played for the legendary and controversial Adolph "The Baron" Rupp, at the time the greatest dynasty-builder in college round ball (and still third on the all-time victory list behind Bobby Knight and Dean Smith). In 1966, the Wildcats went to the NCAA finals and lost to Texas Western in one of the most famous of college championship games, a feat celebrated in the 2006 film "Glory Road," in which Mr. Riley appeared in a bit part. Texas Western became the first team with an all-black squad to win an NCAA title, much to the chagrin of Coach Rupp, who stood in the way of integration of Kentucky sports for nearly two decades.

No stigma from Mr. Rupp's attitudes attached itself to Mr. Riley, who had been playing with and competing against black players since his schoolyard days. His NBA career was undistinguished; he averaged only 7.4 points per game as a guard-forward, though he earned a championship ring as a key "role player" on the 1971-1972 Los Angeles Lakers. He then began a coaching career that produced more milestones than Route 66. Assuming Mr. Riley stays retired, he will finish with 1,210 NBA victories, third on the league's all-time list behind Lenny Wilkens and Don Nelson (though Mr. Riley's .636 won-lost percentage is 64 points higher than Mr. Nelson's and 100 points higher than Mr. Wilkens's).

Mr. Riley has coached 282 postseason games, No. 1 on the all-time list, and his 171 postseason victories rank only behind those of current Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson. He has averaged over 50 wins per season and has missed the postseason only three times -- all with Miami. He ranks as the only NBA coach to have collected at least 350 wins with two different franchises, the Lakers and the Heat.

The bottom line, of course, when assessing Pat Riley's greatness is that he has won five NBA championships, four with the Lakers and one with the Heat -- or, as his best player, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, once quipped, "one for every time he's been on the cover of GQ."

Actually, Mr. Riley has made the cover of that magazine only three times, but that was enough to earn him the nickname "GQ." His other moniker is "Slick," derived from his hairstyle, which he once told Entertainment Weekly he maintained with "water, Sebastian High-Contrast gel, and High-Contrast Hair Spray. The whole thing takes about a minute and a half, and you couldn't mess it up with a sledge hammer."

Mr. Riley's fashion sense is as famous as his hair. According to a story that he doesn't deny, Mr. Riley walked into the dining room of a posh hotel in shirtsleeves on a hot summer night and the maitre d' tried to give him a "house jacket" to wear into dinner. Mr. Riley didn't like the style of the navy sportscoat, walked back to his room and called for room service. His wardrobe, he once revealed, is "about 90% Armani." "He doesn't mind that 'Slick' nickname," says Mr. Abdul-Jabbar, "but he secretly loves to be called 'GQ.'"

When the NBA celebrated its 50th anniversary during the 1996-1997 season, Mr. Riley's selection as one of the league's "Top 10 Coaches of All Time" seemed like a given. So will his induction this September into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame -- if, that is, he stays retired.

kaynak : NBA