The Miami Heat are always among the most interesting shows in sports television… or television period. That also stands for the source of the following passage or quote.
“A man gotta have a code. No matter what you do or how you do it, you’ve got to have a code to live by. It may be one that no one else agrees with, but you have to stick do it. The moment you start to bend and break your own rules, that’s when you’ve crossed the line.”
For my The Wire fan’s out there, we all know what Omar Little stood for. Like he said, “A man gotta have a code”.
Pat Riley is a man that has a code as well. That’s that “We’re going to be the best-conditioned, hardest-working, most professional, unselfish, toughest, nastiest, most disliked team in the NBA,”
The Miami Heat had a traditional free agency this offseason, in all senses of the word. The moves made show that Pat Riley is still living by his own code.
That is exactly what Riley did this offseason, he went for guys who are going to make life hell for opposing teams. Whether win or lose, teams are not going to like to play the Miami Heat this year.
That’s because of guys like Kyle Lowry, P.J Tucker, Dewayne Dedmon and Markieff Morris. With Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo already on the roster ( hopefully Udonis Haslem), Miami just got more dogs to add to them.
This team is what Riley’s New York Knicks were back in the 90s, what the Heat were in the late 90s , and again in the earlier 2000s. That’s a tough minded and defense first type team, that will play at a slow pace.
Riley knows his championship window is dwindling. By these moves Riley made, it seems as though something has brought him back to who he is at his core.
Riley went back to the good ole days but at the same time, these moves still make sense. Riley hasn’t let the game go past him, he just made the game come back to his time.
After an up and down season last year, the writing on the wall was clear to eRiley and the rest of the front office that they had to make moves. With the moves they made, Miami is going to be the most annoying team to play in the league.
That is what Riley and company wants, grind-it-out games. Riley went back to his code.