He celebrated his 81st birthday last month but Heat president Pat Riley is “really pissed” and fully committed to getting Miami back to the playoffs next season.
“I’m not going to retire. I’m not going to resign,” Riley said Monday. “I’m not going to step aside. When I came here almost 31 years ago, I have the same attitude as I had in that press conference on the (cruise line ship) Imagination. Period. I want another parade down Biscayne Blvd. It may come. It may not. It has always been my desire is to win, to win big. I’m not going down that road talking about (retiring). I just clarified it’s not going to happen unless something happens that I can’t control.”
Riley said the only philosophical approach that could lead him to walk away from his 32nd year with the Heat would be ownership deciding to “tank” in an effort to stockpile draft picks. Miami hasn’t been in the lottery — picks 1-14 in the NBA draft — since 2018. But the Heat are in the lottery this year.
Miami missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018-19 when the Charlotte Hornets beat the Heat in the 9-10 play-in game earlier this month.
“You don’t make radical changes right now, not in my philosophy,” Riley said. “I am not going to tank. We are not going to lose. We are not going into the lottery and do that insanity because I will quit — if I ever get ordered to go down that road. I am always thinking of ways to win. Now all I can give you is a bunch of excuses. And I don’t want to do that. We are just not good enough. We are not happy with it. This is the first time in those three years that we have an opportunity to do something with our roster, with our flexibility, with our players.”
The decision ultimately falls to ownership, Riley acknowledged as part of an admission that outside perception on the pecking order and power structure in Miami. He said the gavel on personnel decisions and organizational plans has always rested with Heat owner Micky Arison.
“There are times when he said, ‘No. I don’t think we should go down that road,'” Riley said of Arison’s role in the decision-making structure of the Heat. “And that is the way it is today. I don’t have final say here. I never had it. Never had it when I came, and quite frankly, I don’t think I want it.”
Arison purchased the Heat franchise in 1995 and hired Riley, who said he still feels the same fire to deliver a winner. Losing and not making the postseason fanned those flames, he said.
“I’m really pissed,” Riley said. “I’m disappointed. Disgruntled. Just like everybody else in the organization that understands what we are about — about winning. The last three or four years, with (the) exception of the ’23 season when we got all the way to the Finals, has been something that I am not, we are not proud of.”
