It was 25 years ago this week that Pat Riley looked out the window as Micky Arison's jet descended into Miami and said to his wife, Chris, "Here we go again."
This is a salute to those 25 years. What a pleasure they've been to follow. What a testament to Riley's constant chase after excellence, like after a cap in the wind, and on occasion grasping it.
Everyone remembers the climactic games, the championship nights, the winning smell of cigars and champagne and Riley saying, as he did after winning that first ring with the Big Three in 2012, "It's like a 60-pound rock off your back."
This is as much a salute to all his other nights. The painful nights. The bad decisions or heart-wrenching games that often break the strongest of men across sports.
If Exhibit B to Michael Jordan's greatness was missing 26 game-winning shots and never wavering from taking the next one, Riley's years with the Heat carry a similar theme. Everyone counts his rings. But looks just as closely at how he was knocked down by this game, time after time, and rose each time to rebuild another winner.
That 25-year list tells of Riley's greatness, too: Allan Houston's floater bouncing around the rim, deciding what to do, before dropping in to crush the Heat in 1998; that 0-7 start in 2003 that led to a first exit from coaching; Shaquille O'Neal's ugly departure, Dwyane Wade's injury and a 15-win season in 2008 that led to his final exit from the bench; and finally the one-two sucker punch of LeBron James' exit and Chris Bosh's illness that opened the door and beckoned him to leave.
He was in his 70s. His legend was chiseled. Why continue to grind through his final years while facing yet another grim rebuilding job?
He stayed. He worked. On Monday night, Riley's fingerprints were once again all over a rebuilt Heat team that beat top-seed Milwaukee in the opening game of the second-round series. It's not a finished product. But you can see that from here.
This latest team wasn't just rebuilt under his constant tenets of hard work, no complaining and no pessimism that every business should follow.
It wasn't just rebuilt with the tactics of Erik Spoelstra, the hand-grown coach who reached stardom in his own right years ago. (Did you see Spoelstra's defensive set-up, making Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo move sideways, frustrating him into a rare bad night?)
Nor was this team rebuilt again by this franchise's shrewd evaluation of talent, though that spoke again of the work Chet Kammerer and Adam Simon in the shadows. Turning second-tier draft picks into Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro? The big-money signing of Jimmy Butler when, by comparison, Philadelphia let him go to sign Tobias Harris?
It was all of them. It was Andy Elisburg's salary-cap calculus, It was Tim Donovan's media organization and even radio and broadcast voices like Eric Reid and Jose Paneda. They've all been with the Heat for Riley's 25 years creating a palette of talent, stability and professionalism the Heat work off.
Or maybe Arison created it all? He was smart enough to make the one hire every successful sports owner does. He was shrewd enough to give enough resources to get Riley and keep him this long.
That hiring a quarter-century ago remains shrouded in a haze of history. Did Arison (ahem) accidently bump into Riley, then the New York Knicks coach, and suggest a move? Was Riley the one who introduced the idea to Arison? Whatever, it's worked.
"That partnership, with Riley and the Arisons, that will go down all time," Spoelstra said.
It certainly tells the fate of two franchises. The Knicks, after Riley's people were all gone a few years later, descended to the basement of sports, a franchise that's cycled through big names and big money for two decades with only embarrassment under owner James Dolan.
The Heat became a first-in-class franchise. You can count these on one hand in sports over Riley's quarter-century here. The New England Patriots. The San Antonio Spurs. Do the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Steelers get in? The Pittsburgh Penguins?
Riley is the story of basketball. Played in high school against Lew Alcindor. Played in college for Kentucky's Adolph Rupp in the iconic 1966 national championship game against Texas Western. Won a ring playing with the Lakers of Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain. Won more coaching the Lakers of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Won still another with the Heat, first with Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade and then with the Big Three.
On Monday, he went in the NBA's pandemic bubble. What a journey.
Twenty five years ago on Arison's cruise ship, Imagination, Riley said, "I imagine in my mind about the symbolic championship parade. Maybe right down Biscyane Boulevard."
We've watched that parade three times. And maybe again? What a 25 years. What a pleasure to watch excellence at work.
