Hyde: Heat’s Pat Riley choreographing moves for His Last Dance, too | Commentary

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.”

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.