With Heat cooling off, Riley should bow out

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© St. Petersburg Times
published December 26, 2001

You can try to sugarcoat it if you want. It's the holiday season, so perhaps we should be compassionate and merciful. But the bottom line is the same.

Pat Riley has to go.

We have grown accustomed to associating Riley with South Beach, designer clothing and everything else that embodies Miami. For so many years it has been a perfect fit, Riles with the slick hair and the custom suits ruling over an NBA franchise that drew almost as many movie stars as the Academy Awards.

But we all know Hollywood marriages never last long. And, after six-plus seasons, Riley's is clearly on the rocks.

Have you seen his Heat team this season? Bad doesn't even begin to describe this squad. It is 5-20 and at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, a whopping 12 games out of first place already.

The Chicago Bulls (4-21) have the league's worst record, but if you ask me, the Heat is worst. It can't even score 100 points in a game. Riley has to go. Call it irreconcilable differences. As in, Riley no longer is making a difference.

Hey, Tim Floyd did it. Now it's Riley's turn.

Every other week it seems somebody is taking a shot at him. His own kind has even turned on him. Tim Hardaway said he was too caustic and players don't want to run through brick walls for him anymore. Anthony Mason called him disloyal. Voshon Lenard basically said he was divisive.

Geez, is his mother going to rip him next?

Personally, I don't think the game has passed Riley by just yet, but that's not the point. Heck, if it weren't for Riley, this mismatched outfit wouldn't have the few measly wins it does.

But part of being a good coach is knowing when to fold, and Riley hasn't held aces in a long, long time.

Sure, it looked good his first few seasons in Miami, but overall things just aren't working out for him down there. If they were, he'd have a fistful of Eastern Conference titles, a few NBA Finals appearances and a mantle full of Coach of the Year awards. Maybe more.

Instead, all Riley seems to get is misery and heartbreak followed by more misery.

How many years do you figure he had a title contender in Miami? Three? Maybe four? And how many times did those teams dominate the Atlantic Division only to come up short in the playoffs, bounced long before anyone would have imagined? Probably every time except 1997 when Miami lost to Michael Jordan's Bulls in its only conference final appearance. Riley's teams have been booted out of the first round of the playoffs three times in the past four seasons. And they've lost for all sorts of reasons.

Remember that brawl in 1998 that left star center Alonzo Mourning suspended, ultimately costing the Heat the series against the Knicks? Remember Allan Houston's buzzer-beating shot in Miami in the deciding fifth game in 1999 that cut short yet another Heat playoff run?

Even Miss Cleo could tell you it ain't in the cards for Riley in Miami.

This season just confirms it. Now the Heat isn't just unexplainably getting run out of the playoffs, it has deteriorated to being downright bad. It is getting lit up night after night, trampled again and again by teams the Heat used to walk all over. The sorry Bulls even waxed the Heat.

Did you see the other night when Miami scored 56 points against Utah? Not in a half, in the game. East Carolina scored more than that the other night. I'm talking about the football team -- which lost.

"We just can't score when it counts," Riley told reporters after a loss.

It's as if everything that could go wrong for Riley has. Zo, whom you would have thought was one of the strongest, most fit players in the league, pops up with an unusual kidney malfunction before last season and may never be the same fierce, dominating player.

Jamal Mashburn never panned out, always a no-show in big games. Anthony Mason was a big mistake. Pushing Anthony Carter into Hardaway's starting point guard spot looks premature. Eddie Jones and Brian Grant have been good acquisitions, but both have been hurt.

Now Riley is trying to turn things around with retreads such as Kendall Gill, Rod Strickland, Laphonso Ellis and Jim Jackson, none of whom was terribly good to begin with. If winning one of every four games is your idea of success, then Riley is a genius.

To be fair, not everything that has gone wrong for the Heat has been Riley's fault. He can't control the fact that Grant and Jones have been injured. Nor can he do anything about Zo's condition.

But many of the Heat's sour personnel moves can be pinned on him. After all, he is the coach and president, which means he makes the calls on trades, free-agent signings and contract renewals.

So, it's time to cut bait and go fish somewhere else. Given the right situation, there's no doubt Riley could make a winner out of any number of teams.

Will it happen? Probably not. Riley has said again and again that he isn't going anywhere, which is kind of funny because at this rate the Heat isn't going anywhere this season, either.

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