duncan228
03-10-2011, 03:33 PM
Emperor Riley lords over everything in Miami (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-riley031011)
By Adrian Wojnarowski
In all the ways that the smoke and blinking lights on that balmy July night would haunt LeBron James and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, it had been someone else’s vanity that had thrust them into a mid-summer’s championship parade. Pat Riley lords over everything on the shores of Biscayne Bay, an emperor and a kingdom of his creation. When James saluted him in the hysteria of that evening, the old man smiled and nodded and let the ovation wash over him.
They still call him coach, and that never changes here. Yes, Riley delivered his young coach, Erik Spoelstra, something of a vote of confidence to the Star Ledger’s Dave D’Allesandro on Wednesday, insisting everyone should “write-off” the idea of a coaching change. It’s a complex dynamic, Riles and Spoelstra, because there are ways that the coach is completely protected and ways that he’s completely doomed.
Spoelstra has been raised on Riles’ core principles, believes in them, but this franchise will forever be coached the way Riley wants it coached. The coaches will bark out his verbiage, run his playbook and live in perpetual fear of deviating from the blueprint. It’s hard to be your own man here, hard to find a voice when you get stuck between the superstars on the court and the superstar in the front office.
No, Pat Riley doesn’t want to fire Spoelstra. Perhaps he will have to do it, but he desperately dreads the idea. In some ways, there’s no replacing what he represents for Riley. He doesn’t want to go outside his coaching tree to hire a coach. This way, he has control. He had it over Stan Van Gundy. He has it over Spoelstra. To fire him would mean Riley would have to bring an outsider into his program, to employ a coach with his own mind, own system and his own autonomy.
“He wants the Riley way preserved as much as he wants the winning,” says a league source well-connected with the dynamic between Riley and his coaches. “The players know who’s in charge, and know that Riley will never take a backseat. No one is more concerned with getting credit than him, and that doesn’t allow Erik to go outside of what [Riley] thinks is best. It’s hard to coach on eggshells.”
Keep reading... (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-riley031011)
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-riley031011
By Adrian Wojnarowski
In all the ways that the smoke and blinking lights on that balmy July night would haunt LeBron James and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, it had been someone else’s vanity that had thrust them into a mid-summer’s championship parade. Pat Riley lords over everything on the shores of Biscayne Bay, an emperor and a kingdom of his creation. When James saluted him in the hysteria of that evening, the old man smiled and nodded and let the ovation wash over him.
They still call him coach, and that never changes here. Yes, Riley delivered his young coach, Erik Spoelstra, something of a vote of confidence to the Star Ledger’s Dave D’Allesandro on Wednesday, insisting everyone should “write-off” the idea of a coaching change. It’s a complex dynamic, Riles and Spoelstra, because there are ways that the coach is completely protected and ways that he’s completely doomed.
Spoelstra has been raised on Riles’ core principles, believes in them, but this franchise will forever be coached the way Riley wants it coached. The coaches will bark out his verbiage, run his playbook and live in perpetual fear of deviating from the blueprint. It’s hard to be your own man here, hard to find a voice when you get stuck between the superstars on the court and the superstar in the front office.
No, Pat Riley doesn’t want to fire Spoelstra. Perhaps he will have to do it, but he desperately dreads the idea. In some ways, there’s no replacing what he represents for Riley. He doesn’t want to go outside his coaching tree to hire a coach. This way, he has control. He had it over Stan Van Gundy. He has it over Spoelstra. To fire him would mean Riley would have to bring an outsider into his program, to employ a coach with his own mind, own system and his own autonomy.
“He wants the Riley way preserved as much as he wants the winning,” says a league source well-connected with the dynamic between Riley and his coaches. “The players know who’s in charge, and know that Riley will never take a backseat. No one is more concerned with getting credit than him, and that doesn’t allow Erik to go outside of what [Riley] thinks is best. It’s hard to coach on eggshells.”
Keep reading... (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-riley031011)
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-riley031011