Pat Riley‘s decision to pursue an accelerated rebuild over a “process” has allowed the Heat to make the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2014, Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com writes.
Riley, as Windhorst notes, always approaches his job as team president in a highly competitive manner. The Heat typically don’t fixate on a slow process, rebuild or “tank.” Rather, the organization maintains a winning culture and mentality every season — regardless of the circumstances.
“You know me, I’m all about now,” Riley said earlier this season, as relayed by Windhorst. “We’re going to press on and we’re not going to stop.”
Riley acquired star forward Jimmy Butler in a four-way trade last summer, solidifying the team’s stance of competing for a title now. Miami has exceeded expectations thanks to the rapid improvements of Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson and Kendrick Nunn, along with the trade deadline acquisitions of Jae Crowder and Andre Iguodala. Thus, the club’s first trip to the conference finals in six seasons.
“Miami’s strategy is always to be as good as possible every season,” one league executive said told Windhorst. “They are studs at team building. But you have to acknowledge that strategy also led them to miss the playoffs in three of the last five years.”
Here are some other notes out of Miami:
- Jae Crowder has officially found his footing after being traded to the team earlier this year, a re-occurring theme in the 30-year-old’s professional career, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel writes. Crowder has been traded a total of six times since entering the league in 2012. “I look at it like this,” he said, “this is what keeps me going: You see a lot of guys who are being traded and they get waived once they get to the team. That’s never happened in my career. So once I’ve gotten traded, I’ve been able to sustain a role. I’ve been wanted. I feel like another team wants me. I just think that speaks of my work. I don’t look at it as bad thing. I don’t get frustrated with the process, because I feel like I’ve every team I went to, I’ve had a role to play.”
- Winderman examines whether Kendrick Nunn‘s stock is in the rise in his latest “Ask Ira’ mailbag. Nunn, the runner-up for the 2019-20 Rookie of the Year award, contracted COVID-19 this summer and struggled to get back into his old form during the restart, but the 25-year-old is also starting to find his footing as the back-up point guard behind Goran Dragic.
- The Pat Riley-Danny Ainge rivalry is set to add another chapter with the Heat and Celtics meeting in the conference finals, Windhorst writes in a separate story for ESPN. Both executives share a strong rivalry going back to their playing days, more recently with Riley’s Heat beating Ainge’s Celtics in the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals and Ainge beating Riley in the race to sign Gordon Hayward in 2017.
Oh come on, Riley and Ainge “hate” each other? Doubtful. Dislike and respect each other? Far more likely.
you feel better?! lol…does the wording really matter that much? The other article does say ‘Disliked’ first then move to ‘hated’…While I don’t really care what the wording say i would venture to say stronger feelings towards other rival players was definitely far more prevalent then we have today where all the players are friends correct?
Need a GIF here to explain everthing.
Do I feel better? I feel fine either way, You’re the one all salty.
Wording matters a lot actually.
Them hating each other means they will never consider trading with each other and refuse to have a business relationship. Someone you genuinely hate youre going to make working with extremely difficult.
They probably aren’t on that level. mutual dislike is more like it but I’m sure they’re still willing to trade with each other if they feel the move improves their team.
I was more wondering about their “strong rivalry going back to their playing days.” Was a reserve guard on the Lakers feuding with a high school guard/shortstop from Eugene?
I think Pat Riley can sleep soundly knowing he lost the Hayward sweepstakes.
As can Ainge knowing he lost out on the amazing Kelly O.
At like 1/4 the cost…
Math is not your strong suit.
To be fair, many of Danny Ainge’s biggest successes are trades that would have been terrible for him but fell through because of the other side.
Jae Crowder seems to have his head screwed on right, and he surely is a hard-worker. It’s nice to see him succeed, he fits Miami and Miami fits him.
I think those two. Have a healthy dislike for each other. I’ll say one thing. Both have drafted well. To me that’s the most important thing a team can do. To stay competitive. Not a fan if either one. But I respect them both when it comes to ball. This series is going to be fun. I can’t wait.
Their playing days didn’t overlap, and I doubt Riley thought about Ainge (vs a few other guys) when considering the Laker-Celtic rivalry in his coaching days.
Riley is probably too impatient to implement a “process” (depletion and tanking). But in eschewing the process, he’s really just implementing what all teams did until recently. J.West has rebuilt and retooled teams without a “process” since the 1980s. Including the teams Riley coached.
Not requiring depletion was a lot easier to do when the league was 2/3 of its current size and teams got draft pick compensation (via forced trades) for lost free agents. That’s how the Lakers got Magic at #1 and retooled for the 1980s, not because of some great maneuvering by West. West’s brilliance for the Lakers basically consisted of realizing Magic should be playing PG full time and trading Norm Nixon for Byron Scott (and, of course, Swen Nater, the greatest center in UCLA history).
By the way, that was actually probably a bad trade for the Lakers because they also gave up the draft pick that ended up being Jeff Hornacek (plus Eddie Jordan, too). Hornacek was at least as good as Scott.