Ignite Afterburner: How Pat Riley can most help Miami Heat 2nd half title push

The Miami Heat are poised to possibly pounce on an Eastern Conference & then NBA title entering the 2nd half. Here’s how Pat Riley can most help that cause.

The Miami Heat are one of the darlings of 2019-20’s NBA. While they don’t have the simple novelty of being a contending team who lost last year’s NBA Finals MVP in Kawhi Leonard, like the Toronto Raptors, they are a unique and motivational story.

The Miami Heat have been marred by mediocrity over the past two seasons. They were in that dreaded space that no professional sports franchise or team wants to find themselves in within this era of tanking, salary caps, and catchy slogans that essentially mean “bottoming out in hopes to hit on a top draft pick”. They weren’t good enough to win or contend at the highest level, but they would never be bad enough under Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra’s watch to attain a top-three draft pick.

What were the Miami Heat to do? They would do the Pat Riley thing which is to hang around awhile, bide your time, strike with quickness, suddenness, and with purpose, only to come out on the other side and shock everyone that watches your moves. To be short on clarity here, that means land Jimmy Butler in one now apparently crucial offseason of acquisitions.

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Since that happened, the Miami Heat have not only been one of the better teams in the NBA, but they have seemingly once again become a beacon for finding and developing young gifted NBA talent. You may be wondering when we are going to get to the actual question here, which is “what can Pat Riley do to most help the Miami Heat move closer toward their second half title push?” The answer is nothing more, nothing less.

He has already worked his magic at least five times this year. He got Jimmy Butler, while other teams were chasing and could offer him more from a financial perspective.

He more than hit on a kid out of Chicago while waiving a guy in Rodney McGruder who they really liked, to sign Kendrick Nunn to a regular contract so that he wouldn’t be scooped up by another team, only to be prophetic enough to know that he wouldn’t be unveiled until this season. He also has had this magnificent shooter in his pocket, Duncan Robinson, that he must have known would pay dividends to the success of this season.

According to where he selected and the value attained, Pat Riley also made the best pick of last season’s NBA Draft by nabbing Tyler Herro at 13, undoubtedly the steal of the draft. For the fifth and final illustration of his magic at work, he just recently made one heck of a deal. While he sent out Justise Winslow, a fan favorite by any other name, he did land quite the haul for the Miami Heat.

Andre Iguodala speaks for himself. Jae Crowder has been absolutely superb since coming over and so much so, that it has some of us wondering if we should be looking to lock him up already.

Although Solomon Hill hasn’t played a minute yet, the third player to come over in that trade, I believe when he does touch the floor for Miami that he will be a great addition to what they are doing. This goes quadruple for the defensive end of the floor.

So, again, in answering the question on Riley. He just has to keep doing what he is doing and he will be just fine, other than possibly spending an hour or four scouring the buyout market. But that’s just like doing a crossword puzzle to someone of Riley’s ilk.

He has done his part, all that he can do up until this point, and in quite impressive fashion might we add. At this point, he just needs to sit back and watch the trees he has planted bear the fruits of his labor.