After missing out on his latest big-name free agent target, Pat Riley has assembled a team that will be good (and fun), but not great.
Maybe the great Pat Riley and his bag of rings has been humbled.
At the start of the summer, the Miami Heat’s team president admitted his regret over ever making the comment that he wanted to land a whale. But like last year, and the year before that, he still went fishing and, like every try since the big haul of 2010, he came up empty handed.
He missed on Gordon Hayward just like he missed on Kevin Durant, just like he missed on LaMarcus Aldridge. But there’s a difference between this year and last: Last year, he pivoted by filling out a roster with one-year deals and maintained the cap space to sign a top free agent in the future. He kicked the can down the road, trusting Erik Spoelstra to coach a competitive team but knowing he’d have the opportunity to woo a big-name free agent the next summer.
However, after getting rejected one more time–this time by Hayward who, instead, decided to sign with a rival in the Boston Celtics–Riley committed to the roster he already had. He brought back James Johnson and Dion Waiters, paying $20 million more for them than he did last season at four years a piece, and stole a player from the Celtics by paying him what they wouldn’t (and couldn’t since, y’know, they got Hayward).
The Heat will be good. Riley managed to put together an interesting, versatile roster. Spoelstra will coach a team excited to play together again after going 30-11 in the second half of last season. The East has been weekend by the departures of Paul George and Jimmy Butler. Miami should win something like 50 games and make the playoffs as a top five or six seed. Where last season ended in early April, next season very well may extend into May. That’s worth paying for and, if you’re a fan, worth watching. Even getting excited about.
But it’s not what we’re used to from Pat Riley.
And that’s why I say Riley may finally have been humbled. Gone are the days when you could compete for a championship with two or three All-Stars. With the Warriors and Cavaliers waging titanic wars, you need two or three All-NBA players to have a fighting chance. We live in a world where a team with reigning MVP Russell Westbrook and Paul George–one of the best two-way players in the game—aren’t given a real shot to come out of the West.
What chance does Riley have? He has two near-All-Stars in Goran Dragic and Hassan Whiteside, but no All-Star on the roster. His greatest asset is his coach, Spoelstra, but the Cavs made it to the finals with Ty Lue patrolling the sidelines and Golden State made it despite Steve Kerr not coaching in the playoffs until the second game of the finals.
Signing Hayward could have provided a road. It would have brought an All-NBA caliber player to Miami, and a player other stars may want to play with in the future. (As an example of this, the Rockets have James Harden and, because they have Harden, Chris Paul decided he wanted to play in Houston). Instead, Hayward decided to play with Isaiah Thomas, rather than with Whiteside and Dragic.
Riley, because of his reputation, can get a meeting with anyone. That’s commendable and impressive, but it’s also proven not to be enough.
After missing on enough big swings, sometimes you just need to get on base. That’s what this summer was for Riley and the Heat. And, again, that’s okay! Being on base means you’re still playing, rather than spitting sunflower seeds in the dugout. However, it is a departure from Riley’s all-in attitude. Rather than be driven by championships, maybe he’s content to just win more games than he loses.
There is no road, now, for Riley to build a contender to rival the Cavaliers and Warriors. They are several steps back from the next tier of the Rockets, Celtics and Spurs, too. Without many draft picks, this isn’t a team building for when their runs are over, either.
Miami is basically doing what Portland did last year. The Trail Blazers, after a strong second half that got them into the 2016 playoffs, doubled down on its roster. They re-signed Allen Crabbe, Moe Harkless and Meyers Leonard, and added Evan Turner (from the Celtics). None of those players took the leap they hoped they would, and they mostly treaded water in 2017.
The Heat could have done what the Dallas Mavericks do every summer. Just like Riley, Mark Cuban chases every big name that becomes available (even if he doesn’t get the same meetings Riley does). When he doesn’t land the big free agents, he fills out the roster mostly with one-year contracts and trusts Rick Carlisle to turn them into a competitive team.
That’s what Riley and Spoelstra did last season. However, after missing the playoffs in two of the last three seasons, it seems Riley had enough. Could he have built a .500 team with one-year deals this summer? Maybe. But this team is built to chase 50-plus wins for the next several seasons. Whatever that’s worth to you is your prerogative, but here we are.
This in no way is a slight against Riley. And maybe there is a master plan you, nor I, can see. The Heat can still create cap space by dealing Tyler Johnson and (as of the time of this writing) still have a cap exception worth $4.3 million that could be used on a buyout candidate down the line. James Johnson is the type of player a contender would trade draft picks for should Riley decide he needs to stock up, and there are several contracts on the roster that could be included in a Shaq-like deal.
Maybe after striking out on every major free agent since 2010, Riley is changing his strategy. Free agents make their own decisions, after all, but front offices are the ones who trade players. Maybe Riley’s charm doesn’t work on today’s young players. Maybe he’ll have better luck swindling rival executives.
Next: The 5 best moves of the Pat Riley era
Or maybe Riley, in the twilight of his career, doesn’t want to go out by not competing. Riley will go down as one of the most competitive S.O.B.’s in NBA history and, if there’s one thing his teams will do, it is compete. For something.