At the end of his season, the end of his news conference, the very end of the Heat’s book for 2018-19, Pat Riley stood to leave and summed it up perfectly.
“It was a great year,” he said.
He paused a beat, realizing that didn’t come out right, just as so very much in this season didn’t come out right.
“Well, it wasn’t a great year,” he said. “But this guy made it special.”
He held up one of Dwyane Wade’s souvenir “Legacy” T-shirts, showing how right to the final scene the sideshow was the main show in an otherwise wheel-spinning, nowhere-trending, question-raising Heat season.
At one point, Riley joked how the acronym for Wade’s “One Last Dance” was O-L-D, as Wade pointed out to him in texts. That’s fitting. It’s Riley, at 74, stepping on the dance floor in some respects now.
Riley’s legacy is set, of course. A winner. A champion. The kind of career no one’s ever had as a player, coach and executive. He’s the Don Shula of this generation in South Florida, elevating he Heat to a best-in-show brand.
All that’s left is this tangled roster, which no doubt leads into his grand exit. That’s not to nudge Riley toward the stage’s edge, or say it’s time. Not at all. You ride and die with Riley, if you’re South Florida. You’re rooting for him all the way, too.
An architect’s last dance isn’t over 82 jersey-changing games, as it was with Wade. It’s choreographed over several years with decisions made and not made, of moves set up or dismissed, of secret conversations and back-room deals to build a team. Or, well not build it.
“I’m disappointed in myself,” Riley said of this 39-43 season. “This has not come together how we thought it would. I thought we’d be in the top half of the Eastern Conference. Fourth. Fifth. That would be a step forward.”
More disappointing are some of the Saturday’s revelations. The Heat kept James Johnson and Dion Waiters, even giving them an extra year, after missing on free agents Kevin Durant and Gordon Hayward two summers ago. Waiters had a serious ankle injury at the time, too, which eventually led to surgery.
That was the time to get out from the kind of players the Heat can produce from their minor league or re-shape off of the NBA scrap heap. They’ve proven that.
Instead, Waiters got the money, had surgery and got fat and Johnson got injured, then fat. Now Riley had to defend the Heat culture. Waiters and Johnson have two years left on their deals, too, in a way that affects the rebuild.
The Heat’s immediate summer hope looks down to the fantasy of Hassan Whiteside passing on $27 million guaranteed next year to find a larger role on another team. But, seriously, would you pass on $27 million guaranteed?
There’s the draft, too. The Heat hope to add a player to their young nucleus of Bam Adebayo, Josh Richardson and Justise Winslow. But these are chorus singers, and Riley pointed out he’s only drafted one generational player in his 23 years with the Heat.