Miami Heat: Pat Riley most often always… gets his guy

Miami Heat head man Pat Riley isn’t called the Godfather for no reason. When he calls a shot, it happens & for him, it means he most always gets his guy.

When you think about the Miami Heat, what are the first names that come to mind? As of recent, the first names that might come to mind are Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

If you are of a certain ilk of Miami Heat fans, those names may even be Alonzo Mourning and/or Tim Hardaway. Some might even think the Big 3 or those individuals associated with that awesome era of NBA and Heat basketball, in LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and the greatest Miami Heat player of all time.

Their greatest player of all time, Dwyane Wade, is a name that would probably most commonly come to mind for most and that is about as you would expect it to be. While all of these names are names that cross my mind when I think of our favorite professional basketball team, no name comes with more force and momentum than The Godfather himself, Pat Riley.

While oftentimes having an associated name, coach, or executive with a larger than life persona is not the best thing for any organization, group entity, or in this case, pro sports team, it isn’t a bad thing at all for the Miami Heat.

For the Heat, Riley’s seat at the top conveys a clear and concise message. There will be hard work and you will buy-in, if not you will not be here but if you do, you will experience success.

Something else that Riley stands for is this perception of excellence in your chosen field. Specifically for Riles as the chief personnel decision-maker, this manifests itself in different ways.

The Miami Heat will be alright as long as Pat Riley is where he is. Pat always gets “it” done and he always gets his guy.

The manifestation we want to focus on here though is player acquisition. In simple and plain language, when it comes to Pat Riley, he most always gets his guy. This goes in either free agency or by other means, such as the NBA Draft.

Whether you look at the NBA’s likely Most Improved Player in Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, or even a second-round pick from this past season in KZ Okpala, the Miami Heat wanted them all, all along. Not to mention that all of them went much later in the draft than the Miami Heat had them rated, allowing them to fall to the Heat and much more drastically in Okpala’s case, who the Heat had a mid-first-round grade on.

When you look at free agency, you first think the Big 3. We had heard the rumblings, but no one knew for sure if it would happen, LeBron, CB, and Flash teaming up. As the old marketing phrase and adage goes, “yes we did”, Riley and the Big 3 said.

When it came to Jimmy Butler, we had all heard about that for at least a year or so as well. It didn’t take long either and this is with the fact that the Miami Heat weren’t supposed to have the cap room to facilitate the deal, but guess what? Pat Riley made it happen and got it done.

We have said all this to say this, if you are the Milwaukee Bucks (Giannis Antetokounmpo), the Washington Wizards (Bradley Beal), the Phoenix Suns (Kelly Oubre Jr.), or any other team that Pat is targeting a player from, you better be watching over your shoulders. What that means is because if your guy is on Riley’s radar, you stand just as great a chance of losing him, as you do keeping him.

1…2… Riles is coming for you. 3…4.. you better max those dudes.

It doesn’t matter though, Patty Kreuger is the NBA’s “cap killer extraordinaire” ( H/T Davey52) and he doesn’t miss.