NBA
Demanding Riley won with variety of styles

By Mike Wise
The New York Times

	LUCY NICHOLSON / AP Pat Riley, 58, won 1,110 NBA games in his coaching career, second to Lenny Wilkens on the all-time list.
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About five years ago, Pat Riley heard that Todd Day was upset with his methods. A marginal NBA player had been talking smack behind his back.

So Riley gathered his team together and asked if anyone on the Miami Heat had a problem with his leadership.

"Todd Day, you got a problem with how I run things?" he asked.

Day backpedaled for a few seconds — until Riley silenced him and told him to get out, he was done. Guaranteed contract or not, Day was cut.

"Now," Riley said, breathing deeply, "does anyone else have a problem with how I run this ship?"

The stories have been embellished over time, revisionists helping Riley out, the way the Vince Lombardi and Knute Rockne football myths took shape.

"But the common thread was that he worked well with anyone who was committed," Jeff Van Gundy, Riley's former assistant, said. "When you're about winning, you have to confront what loses, even if it's not pretty."

Even when you have to step aside, let someone else coach.

Riley stepped away from the sideline Friday, more than 20 years after he began at the Fabulous Forum with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He won with "Showtime" stars in Los Angeles. He came close with a great center — Patrick Ewing — and grit in New York. He turned nothing into something in Miami before Alonzo Mourning became ill and the bottom fell out.

Three cities. Three contenders. Drama. Destroyed egos and loyalists, players who would take down Shaquille O'Neal for him if he asked.

Today, Riley also leaves a league of players who have insulated themselves with people — agents, family, friends — who tell them what they want to hear. Riley told players what they needed to hear, and that is how he made multimillionaires compete as if they were trying not to get cut from the junior varsity and maybe never play competitive basketball again.

When a sports executive was recently asked to explain Riley's allure to women, she grew incredulous.

"Women don't love Pat Riley," she said. "It's the men. He's a dude magnet."

Riley was the coach who could teach how to never lose another grade-school fight behind the cafeteria. He could teach how to make peace with a hard-knock father without saying a word.

Jeff Van Gundy's voice was about to crack late Friday night when he spoke of how two stumpy, rumpled kids from Martinez, Calif., ended up as head coaches in the NBA.

"My brother and I wouldn't be here," he said several hours after Stan Van Gundy, Riley's longtime assistant in Miami, took over the Heat.

"I still remember him sitting me down after my first year with him," Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said.

With no NBA playing pedigree to speak of, Van Gundy persevered. "Coach Riley said: 'It doesn't matter where you came from. You can be a head coach in this league.' "

When he left New York for Miami's millions in 1995, Riley became the incarnation of Gordon Gecko, the Michael Douglas character in "Wall Street." Slick. Greedy. Yet the coiffed Armani facade always belied the soul of a scrapper from Schenectady, N.Y.

Over his career, something about role players with immeasurable heart made Riley lose his head.

He stuck with John Starks too long in Game 7 of the 1994 Finals, and the Knicks lost to Houston after Starks missed 16 of 18 shots. New York fans never forgave him. But Riley would rather have gone down in flames with John Starks than won with Todd Day.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company