Lakers to honour Pat Riley with a statue

Pat Riley (Keith Allison, Wikimedia Commons)

According to Shandel Richardson of Sports Illustrated on Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers are honouring former head coach Pat Riley of Rome, New York with his own statue. The monument will take place outside crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California.

Riley is being recognized for his nine seasons coaching the Lakers from 1981 to 1990. In that time, the Lakers won four NBA Finals. They defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in six games in 1982, the Boston Celtics in six games in 1985, the Celtics again in six games in 1987, and the Detroit Pistons in seven games in 1988. In addition to winning four NBA Finals, Riley guided the Lakers to three additional NBA Finals appearances.

In 727 regular season games, Riley had a record of 533 wins and 194 losses for a winning percentage of .733. Then in the playoffs, Riley had a record of 102 wins and 47 losses for a winning percentage of .685. The fact that Riley coached 149 playoff games in nine seasons is remarkable. That is an average of 16.6 playoff games each season. While in Los Angeles, Riley had the opportunity to coach Magic Johnson, who we considered as the 10th best player ever in 2019.

Ir is interesting that the Lakers are honouring Riley with a statue when he has not been with the franchise in 34 years. Since 1990, he was the coach of the New York Knicks for four years from 1991 to 1995, and the coach of the Miami Heat for 11 seasons (1995 to 2003, and 2005 to 2008). Riley won a fifth NBA Finals with the Heat in 2006. Since 2008, Riley has been the president of the Heat and won the NBA Finals in 2012 and 2013.

Also with the Lakers, Riley played six seasons with the Lakers as a player from 1970 to 1976. He was also an assistant coach for two years with the Lakers from 1979 to 1981, and won the 1980 NBA Finals. The Lakers beat the 76ers in six games, with Riley working under Lakers head coach Paul Westhead of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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