No, one of the most egotistical deserve little respect IMO, especially one that sucked so much in the post season for his last 10 years coaching. REGULAR SEASON POST SEASON YEAR TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT WINS LOSSES PCT 1981 Los Angeles 50 21 .704 12 2 .857 1982 Los Angeles 58 24 .707 8 7 .533 1983 Los Angeles 54 28 .659 14 7 .667 1984 L.A. Lakers 62 20 .756 15 4 .789 1985 L.A. Lakers 62 20 .756 8 6 .571 1986 L.A. Lakers 65 17 .793 15 3 .833 1987 L.A. Lakers 62 20 .756 15 9 .625 1988 L.A. Lakers 57 25 .695 11 4 .733 1989 L.A. Lakers 63 19 .768 4 5 .444 1991 New York 51 31 .622 6 6 .500 1992 New York 60 22 .732 9 6 .600 1993 New York 57 25 .695 14 11 .560 1994 New York 55 27 .671 6 5 .545 1995 Miami 42 40 .512 0 3 .000 1996 Miami 61 21 .744 8 9 .471 1997 Miami 55 27 .671 2 3 .400 1998 Miami 33 17 .660 2 3 .400 1999 Miami 52 30 .634 6 4 .600 2000 Miami 50 32 .610 0 3 .000 2001 Miami 36 46 .439 0 0 .000 2002 Miami 25 57 .305 0 0 .000 2003 Miami 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 TOTALS 1110 569 .661 155 100 .608 http://www.nba.com/coachfile/pat_riley/
Well take this for what its worth, on 610 on my way home, Matt and Adam were supposed to interview JVG and he declined. they said he wanted to deal with the situation going on in his family (SVG). they also speculated that he didn't want to say anything he may regret. remember also, JVG has a relationship with riley also being an assistant under him.
I hope next we will hear JVG quits on the radio citin the reason he wanna spend more time with his brother SVG!!!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/marty_burns/12/12/notebook.1212/index.html Doin' the contender shuffle Riley takes over Heat while Artest asks out of Indy Showtime? Or Snowtime? That's the question Monday morning with the news that Heat coach Stan Van Gundy resigned for "family reasons." Did Van Gundy really step down? Or was he pushed? We might never know for sure (remember Van Gundy's brother Jeff once bailed on the Knicks citing similar mysterious personal concerns), but the timing sure appears to be more than coincidental. Rumors that team president Pat Riley had his eyes on the job have been swirling since last summer, when the Heat made those big moves to acquire Antoine Walker, Jason Williams and James Posey. The only surprise is the timing, coming one day after Shaquille O'Neal returned from an ankle injury and the Heat had won a big game in exciting fashion Sunday night. In fact, watching Van Gundy on the sidelines in Sunday night's OT win over the Wizards, I didn't think he looked like a guy getting ready to hang it up. He was up on his feet, urging his players, yelling at refs. At one point late in the game he charged out several feet onto the floor to complain to an official about a non-call on Dwyane Wade. The parties can spin it any way they want, but Van Gundy was pushed out in one form or another. NBA coaching jobs are hard to get, especially one as good as Miami's."Personal reasons" can be legitimate, but most of the time it's a euphemism. Van Gundy must have felt he was going to get whacked eventually, or that he no longer had Riley's unwavering support. Maybe, like Rudy Tomjanovich's departure from the Lakers a year ago, it was a combination of factors. Look for Riley to light a fire under the Heat, at least in the short term. Perhaps knowing that Van Gundy was going to be gone at some point, Miami's players (other than Wade and Alonzo Mourning) have looked lackadaisical much of the campaign. With Riley in charge, the focus will be sharper. But this move also comes with some risk for Riley. Like Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who left the front office to take over San Antonio right before Tim Duncan arrived, Riley is opening himself up to charges of opportunism. He has to lead this team to the NBA title or he's going to look bad.
That's pretty unfair. Objectively he turned around both the Knicks and the Heat. Those same Knicks (the team he coached) ended up being a big obstacle to his Heat teams. When he was at the Knicks they were the BEST competition the Bulls had in ANY of the six years they won it all. He completely brought the Heat from a joke to a legitimate playoff team. I think its crazy to claim he 'sucked,' even if you couch it with the caveat of 'in the post season his last 10 years.' Especially when you look in comparison to other coaches. Or if you include the fact that the Bulls were in a dynastic period over most of those 10 years. Who is a 'peer' of Riley? Jackson? Please. Jax has more rings but has NEVER turned a team around. True, Riles inherited great players in LA, but IMO he also had to coach against GREAT teams (Phily, Boston, Detroit) where Jax NEVER hit a GREAT team when he was coaching the Bulls. He inherited (for the SECOND time) the best player in the game and probably another top5 player in Kobe. Big Deal. Who else comes even close to Riles achievement of winning rings with big guns, and turning two franchises around? Nobody. Ease up, Cohen. I admit it, I'm an unabashed Riles fan. Of course he was the Rockets first pick in '67. I guess Cohen wasn't a fan back then . He doesn't play with the million dollar TO wannabe's. HE runs the team. He's not some new age maharishi. He's old school. Listen to Shaq talk about the guy. Listen to Zo or Ewing or those guys talk about him. Sure Hardaway griped when Riles wouldn't PAY him when he was done, but hardaway became a winner under riles. So did Mashburn. Even when they were getting swept by the Bulls they played HARD. The guy is undisputably a great coach. If you contend otherwise then you are letting your personal dislike for a coach with an ego overshadow your common sense. Cohen, quoting Steve Kerr? As Bones would say on Star Trek - 'Good lord, man. What have you done?' I believe someone else may have already pointed out that it wasn't the same team.
anyone ever watch NBA Nation. Last night they were talking about Stan Van Gundy not being able to handle the pressure and a team like the Heat need a great coach. anyway that's what Anthony was saying. Legler was saying that pat ran stan out and he was taking up more for stan. like legler put it, van gundy has been in the NBA for more than 10 seasons, and he just now realizes how much time he spends away from his family? yeah right. but what was irking me is that anthony kept talking about how great riley was and they needed him like van gundy was some scrub. i wanted someone to ask anthony did he remember what the heat were before stan took over. the team riley quit on. his point was that shaq knew the importance of a strong personality because he won championships with phil. on matt and adam's show they were talking to jvg, and they brought a stat up that the heat were like 21-4 to close out stan's first season. that's amazing.
I respect what he did with the Lakers. Even though they were talent-laden (unlike my disdain for PJ) I think Riley was a great coach during the Laker run. So I know that I'm not biased, at least not overly so. I would check my own bias if I were you. He improved the knicks and heat a little, most defensive minded coaches will accomplish that, but he's lost his effectiveness over time. Then knicks defense improved substantially, but he could not quite get their offense going (sounds familiar). There were painful to watch. As for the Heat, most people don't recall that they were in the playoffs 2 of the 4 seasons before Riley got there. Then he got them there for 6 seasons straight, somewhat impressive, but most of those runs were a bust. He won about 50% of his playoff games (so mediocre compared to the 16 coaches who get their teams into the post season) in his last 14 years, and only 18 of his 43 in his 8 seasons at Miami. In his last post season show in 2000-2001, the Heat were swept in the first round. In 2001-2002, they won 36 games. In 2002-2003, they won only 25. His decline is obvious to all but the most serious of Riley homers. SVG shocked evryone and got the Heat back to the playoffs in 2003-2004 (still w/o a Shaq) and they lost a tough 6 games series against Indiana in the 2nd round, and went 7 games against Detroit in the ECF last year. The Heat went 7-7 in the post season in their first year with SVG, and 11-4 last year (w/o a healthy Shaq). The last time Riley went 11-4 was 1988. And FWIW, watch Miami become a lot less fun to watch as the farther we get into Riley's coaching.
They looked a lot like the....uh.....Rockets, those years . Again you're not telling the whole story. Hardaway was hurt and Zo was out almost the whole season with his first bout of kidney disease. Yeah, it wasn't watching the deterioration of the Heat's franchise player - 7 time All Star and two time Defensive Player of the Year, Zo - that caused the upsurge in losses. It was Riley losing the plot. That makes sense. You are using stats in the worst way, Cohen. The teams JVG did well with were not the teams Riley coached in previous years. Adding Odom and Dwayne Wade makes a tinsy difference to a team. Then adding Shaq is another tinsy little difference. I don't see an argument why Riley wouldn't have been successful with those teams. Nothing in his history indicates otherwise, while the bulk of his record tends to support him being one of the greats in coaching. What does FWIW mean? I think defensive teams are fun to watch, personally. But IIRC, the man once coached a team they called 'Showtime.' That was fun to watch too!
HayesStreet, Nice way to pick and chose what to respond to, but whether you consider his mediocre in 14 years of playoffs, his less impressive post season record in 8 years at Miami, of his lousy 3 final years there, he clearly has gone continuously gone downhill from his years at LA. Try to explain away 14/8/3 years of progressively worse results? And then SVG's surprisingly good results? Results speak for themselves.
Your conclusion is simply flawed. The teams SVG coached were not the same as those Riley coached. Hence, implying that SVG did well with the same team Riley lost with, as you do, is ridiculous. Is it reasonable to assert that because the Knicks and Heat weren't as successful as the Lakers that Riley's coaching has deteriorated? No, that's absurd. One can make that gigantic leap only if you pretend the rosters were equally stocked with HoF'ers, which clearly is not the case. Were both the Knicks and Heat more successful after Riley arrived? Yes. Clearly. If one were to reverse your calculus and just look at results, then try this on: Riley - four rings and 7 or 8 finals appearances; SVG - no rings and no finals appearances. Results speak for themselves?
I think ultimately Shaq is the one who decides the coach in Miami. If Shaq wanted SVG, he would be the man. Of course, Riley might have set up SVG for the fall by undermining him in front of Shaq and the other players.
Riley's downfall is obvious. You can't claim he's an elite coach when he hasn't proven it for almost 20 years. C'mon HS, quit being such a homer. In SVG's 2 short years as coach, he's been successful. He may never be as successful as Riley was in LA, but the issue is who's better NOW. Riley has to prove that he can coach as well as he did a long time ago, whereas SVG couldn't have done much better in the last 2 years/first 2 years as head coach.
Name calling? C'mon Cohen. Even if you think he didn't do a good job with Miami, which I think is silly, but even if you think that - his Knicks teams were very good. They were in the Game 7 of the finals much more recently than 20 years ago, IIRC. I'm not sure why there is some temporal cutoff at 2 years in evaluating a coach, but there is still no reason to believe Riley would not have done as well with both of the teams SVG coached. Wade and Odom were a significant improvement over the last team Riley coached. Those teams were obviously in rebuilding mode after the demise of Zo, Haraway getting old etc. Shaq is the most dominant force in the NBA. I imagine that helped somewhat in Stan's year 2. While most speculate that anything less than the finals would be a big disappointment for Riley, contending that he has to prove he's a better coach than SVG is patently ridiculous. Jim O'Brien took his team to the playoffs last year. Is he a better coach NOW than Riley? Stan is a good coach. I like SVG. But your argument just doesn't hold water.
