Transcription
Alright man, peace. You know, brothers, there's a very thin line between ambition and delusion. Oftentimes, we have to be borderline delusional when we have a vision for ourselves in our mind, when it comes to the potential that we feel like we have to achieve our goals. And sometimes, we can alienate other people. We can come off as crazy when we've become so obsessive about our goals, and it can lead to a self-ostracizing effect where other people just don't want to be around us because we become so captivated by the image that we have and the goals that we have.
And I see a lot of that. Mr. Pat Riley. Why do I say that? Because he recently brought forth certain statements pertaining to Mr. LeBron James and his belief, however probably erroneous, that had LeBron James stayed on the Heat, they would have been a dynasty for another ten years. Keep in mind that Pat Riley was not only the architect of the offensive splendor of the Showtime Lakers in the 1980s, he was also the defensive architect of many of the transformative teams of the 1990s, like the New York Knicks led by Patrick Ewing, the Miami Heat led by Alonzo Mourning. So, Pat Riley's one of the most influential coaches of all time. So, they're gonna talk about it. It embodies the general sentiment. It ain't good, but that's not necessarily how Pat Riley feels about LeBron's departure. The Heat team president, and he doesn't hold ill-will towards the man that brought a couple of Larry O'Brien trophies to the city. Yes, he does.
The reason why Pat Riley holds so much ill-will for LeBron James is because he was not willing to accept what he was and what that phase in LeBron's life was truly about. LeBron has gone on record as stating that he believes that his tenure with the Miami Heat was more like a college experience where he learned how to win. He came to understand order and structure and discipline and how essential those components are to being a success in life. What Pat Riley realized is that all he was was a proverbial slide-off and a rebound. LeBron was always in love with Cleveland. He was always going to go back, but he was just having his fun in Miami. That's all. That's all the Miami Heat ever were to LeBron James, and of course, they will also that proverbial basketball university. Of course, it does. The side chick in her mind always feels like she has what it takes to steal the guy from the main woman.
Describe yourself publicly as devastated, and you said that you will never forget that phone call where you just felt like, "Hey, weren't we building something together?" You know, when LeBron made that call, I saw a dynasty fly out the window. [ __ ] Yeah, we're not going any more championships. LeBron left that team at just the right time. But once again, Pat Riley, I understand why you're so delusional because you're so driven and ambitious. I get it. Yes, you did. Ten-year team. Dwyane Wade, when LeBron James left, Wade was about 30 to 33 years old, and he had the body of a 45-year-old. I will never forget how Wade looked in those 2014 finals. He looked like somebody who was on medication. He really did. His face was bloated. He lost all muscle definition in his body. He looked like someone who was either on some type of medication or was a cokehead or whatever. And I'm look, everything I'm saying is alleged. I'm just telling you how you looked. The sad day for for me and for our franchise because I wanted that dynasty. You know, I wanted this city and this team to go ten years in the finals. That [ __ ] wasn't gonna happen.
To Pat Riley, knock it off. Check out the conversation with Dan Le Batard this Sunday, 5:30 Eastern on ESPN. Now, the four years of the Big Three were good to Miami. In addition to two titles, James, Wade, Bosh, for 12 All-Star selections. The only team with wins in that span was the Spurs, who beat the Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals. It should have beat him twice. A-five, a-six. Back over to First Take right now to discuss. Welcome back to First Take, presented by the US Marines. Pat Riley talking about a potential Heat 10-year window and dynasty. You can see that full interview on The Art of Conversation with Dan Le Batard on Sunday at 5:30 Eastern, ESPN. So, DVR that. Same night. It's Riley. Right. Nice. I don't know. He ain't right, but I understand. Once again, I get it. Pat Riley thought that he had found somebody. He really thought that he had stole a good man from his woman. That's what he thought.
Once again, the side chick to conquer mind always has aspirations for being a wife. So, what she'll do? She'll try to cook. Sure. Try to clean. Even though in her innermost recesses, she's always aware that there is the potential for that man to go back to his wife, to his number one. Sure. Still try to steal the man. And that's why Pat Riley's so upset. He's like, "I clean this house for you every day. I don't even like to cook. I cook for you, and you still left. I went back to that [ __ ]." I will tell you, they would have been probably dominant for the next three, at least in some capacity in the Eastern Conference. They would have. They might have won another championship. They might have lost a couple more championships, but they would have been to the finals about, I would say, about three more times. Remember, to you, at best, understand that Chris Bosh's body started to break down after LeBron James left. Also, I remember that D-Wade started to break down even more after LeBron James left. They went to the semi-finals of the Eastern Conference. They beat the Charlotte Hornets in a seven-game series in the first round, lost in seven games to the Toronto Raptors. I remember that everybody was rooting for the Miami Heat to win so that we could see Miami go up against Cleveland. D-Wade to get LeBron. And I believe that D-Wade wanted that very badly as well because even though he won't talk about it, LeBron James kind of left them high and dry.
Now, there are varying versions of the story or how LeBron James left Miami and whether or not he informed D-Wade, but D-Wade really wanted that series to happen. I remember that when they played Toronto in seven games, unfortunately, Toronto won. Is in the second round without the services of Chris Bosh. That's when he went down. He was averaging around nine a game that year, played about 53 games, and that was really where the nosedive began for the Miami Heat. I say they would have been dominating the Eastern Conference, but not necessarily overall. San Antonio was still relevant, or the Golden State Warriors were coming into their own. I think that Dwyane Wade at that particular moment in time still had a little bit left. I know there's a lot of people, and I'll let Max touch on that, where you believe that Dwyane Wade might have gotten in the way. I don't believe that at all because I believe his relationship with LeBron is such, and he's enough of a professional where, you know, he would have played whatever role was needed to play, and he would not have gotten in the way of winning because that's just not what Dwyane Wade does. He's a winner, and he's not gonna get in the way of winning. But I would not go as far as to say they would have been dominated for five years, let alone ten. I think that's going too far. Five years have gone way too far.
Stephen A, there's a reason why LeBron James went back to Cleveland. He wanted to team up with Kyrie Irving, a young, look, he wanted to team up with Kevin Love, a player who he thought he could craft into being another version of a Chris Bosh type of character. That's why he left. He left to go back to his real woman, who also has to be younger than a concubine. But I definitely think that they would have been in the championship picture, in the championship equation, at least three following years with LeBron James, if not a little bit longer. Pat Riley told Dan Le Batard, "Ten more years of dominance." He is wrong. And not wrong by a little, wrong by a lot. Look, agreed. Love me some Pat Riley, but boy, is that wrong. Maybe another year, maybe like, probably they could have figured out because Pat Riley is insanely competitive, and he has LeBron James in his prime. Maybe they win another championship. They squeeze it out somewhere. I think that what Pat Riley means is that he would have found a way to refurbish the team around LeBron. He would have found a way to lure in other free agents to help LeBron. If I'd be a betting man, that's what he's referring to. But he knows that what the tandem of LeBron and Erik Spoelstra, they would have been able to lead that team and galvanize that team to more Finals appearances. And once again, that that leads me to another point. One of the main reasons why the narrative is that LeBron never played for a great coach is because he did not stay in, I mean, long enough for Erik Spoelstra to get the credit that he deserves as being a great coach. LeBron left just in time to carry all the credit with him. Maybe one, maybe one more. And that's what Dominic means, really, not just a dominant Eastern Conference powerhouse, a championship team. And I agree. Then ongoing championship team where you're winning more than a couple, you know, like a couple more times, at least.
Look, let's not forget what we were thinking at the time, what the uproar was about in time with LeBron made the decision to go to Miami. It's that he was because these things are slippery, and we allow things to slide the way we perceive it, then we don't identify it. Yeah, you do that all the time. Dwyane Wade was a top-five player in the NBA, arguably top three. There was LeBron and Kobe and Duncan and Wade and Nowitzki in a certain year, whatever. Like, Dwyane Wade was a top. By the way, agreed. Wait, wait. I had the best finals anyone had had since Michael. Short. Well, I'd say that Dwyane Wade's finals in 2006 was the best stat finals, the best impact finals that any player had had since Shaq, probably in in 2000 or 2001. Took apart the match before LeBron's out there. Dwyane Wade was an insanely great superstar. That's why not two, not three, not we're all like, "Yeah, they're gonna win like eight championships in the next ten years." They won two out of four, and then it was over. Why? Because Dwyane Wade was already in decline. Agree. The first year he played with LeBron, he was no longer a top three or five player. No, I'm not really true. The first year that Dwyane Wade played with LeBron was the 2010-2011 season, and they both averaged around 25 points per game. That's when, in the offseason after LeBron James flamed out against the Dallas Mavericks, Dwyane Wade took him aside and said, "I'm going to give you the keys to the team." LeBron came back the next season, averaged about 26, 27 points a game. Dwyane Wade's PPG came down to about 21 or 22 points a game. So, Dwyane Wade divested a lot of control of the team over to LeBron. Now, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014, that's that's when Dwyane started to slide, and he never regained that status again. And it wasn't just 'cause he was playing with LeBron and had to defer. He was starting to slide. Age and everything. And he's not a huge guy, and the way he played so aggressively and as well, the way that he plays so out of control. The women would go to the basket in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and he would literally penetrate to the cup and fall down to the ground without anybody even hitting him. He became enraptured by falling down and getting back up because he became so interested in the media's coverage of him as being this player who was so rough and rugged. He would not land on his feet even when he was not touched, and that led to a lot of degradation in his body that we started to see around 2008. Absolutely changed. He's not a shooter, and all those things. Still a great player, but not what he was. First, but not what he was at least perceived to be when LeBron first got there. And then Chris Bosh. Chris Bosh was forced to stop playing basketball for issues out of his control. So, Pat Riley's devotion and loyalty to Dwyane Wade on a championship mix, right, would undermine a ten-year dynasty. What happened? Well, that's you presuming that Pat Riley would have been loyal to Dwyane Wade. Keep in mind that Pat Riley led to Dwyane Wade go even with LeBron James not there. So, you're assuming that Pat Riley would have been loyal to Dwyane Wade. What I'm saying is that the reason why Pat is upset with LeBron is because he wanted to use LeBron James as the linchpin for the team over the course of the next eight or nine seasons, and he would have gladly swapped out Dwyane to bring in fresh blood. I believe that Pat Riley would have tried to bring on players like a Kyrie Irving or like a Kevin Durant to Miami using LeBron James as the bait. Well, he would have found some type of 3-and-D guy to lure down to Miami using LeBron James as the bait. But this assumption that Pat Riley was loyal to Dwyane Wade, no, nothing could be further from the truth. They brought Dwyane back as a consolation because they, they have not been able to bring in any other high-profile free agent. So, you know what? You can't bring in another player who can make the team great again. You bring in nostalgia so that the fans can come and watch Wade and wait for his last couple of seasons. That's how that works. Chris Bosh. Pat Riley is the type to be like, you know what? I'm gonna trade Dwyane Wade while he still has something left and move Chris Bosh. If he could predict somehow Chris Bosh's medical situation, that maybe he could surround LeBron with enough to go on and on and on. But that's not the way it was gonna happen.
Stephen A, that team was never going to be dominant for another ten years, not even another five, if by dominant we mean really contending for championships and winning them sometimes. Well, I think, well, first of all, I, as I said before, we don't want to say we started. I definitely don't agree with the ten. When you're talking about three to five, I definitely think they would have contended because I think they would have had enough to be dominant in the Eastern Conference a lot of times. I think you look at things in a vacuum, Max, and you're not taking into account the regular, the whole landscape of the National Basketball Association and the opposition that you're going up against. It's not like the Spurs continued to stand. They started fading themselves. Also, the Golden State Warriors won't want to come up. The Clippers and the Warriors were put in heads with one another, and if the Clippers hadn't collapsed in Game 6 but against the Houston Rockets, then they would have met the Warriors in 2015, and they would have got their doors blown off. Steven A, Smith, knock it off with that [ __ ] already. The Clippers were never going to get to the finals. Golden State had not yet learned how to win. We also had what the Clippers had learned how to win. Why? Because the Clippers had beat the Warriors the previous year when the Warriors were still being coached by Mark Jackson and playing that antiquated style of offense because they had beaten them in seven games. You were assuming that the Clippers were going to defeat the Warriors in 2015. Come on. He also had things going on at Oklahoma City where Kevin Durant was hurt one year. Actually, that Harden was gone, and that way, but, but, right, Harden was gone by 2012. But let's stop right there, Stephen A, and think about what was going to happen. Let's say LeBron and Wade and company figured out a way to win another championship. Let's say it was they who went into Oracle would be 273 red team. Then KD still goes to Golden State, and there is no way that Miami Heat team ever competes with this Golden State team. It's just not gonna happen. It, but, but, you know what's new today? They never could have done that because the reason LeBron was able to overcome them is he had a crime partner in Kyrie that was still ascending and getting better, young, and dynamic. That was agreed. That was no longer Dwyane Wade. LeBron needs someone who can do that with another kind of words. It's not Wade anymore. No, it was. Yeah, yeah. I will say this, though, even though I like what Max Kellerman is saying here, because LeBron didn't need that youth in Kyrie to be able to come back against Golden State. One might be able to surmise that had LeBron stayed in Miami and D-Wade maybe been able to to reclaim some of his youth or reinvigorate himself, the defense that Miami would have been playing would have been on a whole other level from Cleveland, even though Cleveland played great defense in that series. Now that I think of it, but the defense that Miami normally played may have given the Golden State Warriors fits in 2016 as well, and they may have been able to defeat the Golden State. Also, for me, let's wipe Kyrie and Cleveland out of the equation. I am a person that would have been confident enough in Pat Riley to believe that him in concert with Wade and LeBron would have been able to get somebody else to come to South Beach. I knew that sir each. That's what I'm saying. And so when I look at the Eastern Conference, I still think that they would have been representing the East at least a couple more years because there was nobody in the East standing in their way. And then the Western Conference, Golden State had not quite learned how to win yet. So, I'm of the mindset that Miami might have won one more title, or two, about three more finals. All right. And that would have been about it. That's four, not five, not ten years. But I think that what I, what my, what my summary is this is really. I think that it was well, I think that Pat Riley is much more cutthroat than either one of you are giving him credit for. I believe that the only reason why Pat Riley negotiated or attempted to negotiate with Dwyane Wade in the first place is because there was no LeBron. There. Had LeBron still been there, could easily see Pat Riley giving Dwyane his walking papers or offering him a job in the front office or on the coaching staff. I easily could see that. But if he were to ever brought back Dwyane, it would have been in a severely diminished role, and then Pat Riley would have tried to go after a top-notch free agent to team up with LeBron James. Okay. But this is my point, Stephen A. The reason they weren't, they could have had a 10-year run with LeBron James or something like that, 80 or something. The reason that was never going to happen is that Pat Riley, even though, you know, Dwyane Wade's motto is not loyal enough to Wade. Pat Riley's part of what he does is that sense of loyalty in the organization, allegedly, allegedly. He was so loyal to the Knicks that after Patrick Ewing and Mr. Finger Roll against Indiana Pacers, he didn't even quit the team. He didn't even resign face to face. The man sent a fax and just left and went to Miami. Part of the way he gets everyone to play so hard, it starts, starts at the top. You know, fish rots from the head down. Look at the Knicks, but look at the Heat, right? The way the way it functions well is his intensity and loyalty helps. He would have been too loyal to Dwyane Wade. They would not have been able to replace Wade with the kind of crime partner that LeBron would need to do the things. Look beyond what you're talking to. Let me give you some info as to why you're wrong. First of all, the Dwyane Wade was no longer a slide, and we get all of that. But one of the reasons they had a falling out and D-Wade had to end up going to Chicago is because Pat Riley went to him and said, "You gotta come off [ __ ]." Thank you, sir. And that's what he would have done had LeBron James still been there. At best, he would have told him, "You got to come off the bench." You know, and that was a problem for D-Wade. Didn't have a conversation about it. Didn't hear suggestions here. And then he went to Dwyane Wade, then was of the mindset, you know, your time is up. You need to come off the bench so Richardson and others can get some more shine at being that lineup and carried his franchise because you're not what you used to be. That Dwyane Wade had a problem with that. So, it's not like Pat Riley, oh, that's there's a buckle. It's not like Rock. Pat Riley is incapable of looking you in your face and telling you we say you got to re-evaluate. Wait, wait on numerous occasions sacrificed dollars. Steven Rally, absolute. This is what I'm talking about. Cold-blooded, calculated lack of loyalty. Up about Bill Belichick. In order for that to keep going on as a dynasty, Pat Riley would have had to do something like trade Dwyane Wade for what turned into Kemba Walker. You know, he had to do something before Dwyane Wade had value anymore. In a time where father Miami would have been like, "Who traded Dwyane Wade?" Where LeBron would have blown a gasket and got mad at Pat Riley. Pat Riley is not disloyal to the point he would have needed to be to keep that dynasty going. Jack. Well, a lot of that is speculative, and it's conjecture, and the reason why it's difficult to be able to ascertain if you're correct or not is because in order for Bill Belichick to do what he does, he needs to have Tom Brady there, who acts as the foundation of that whole enterprise. If Pat Riley had been able to keep LeBron James, he may have utilized more skullduggery. He may have been more ruthless. You never know. A person can only be as ruthless as their options. That's it. And Pat Riley had fewer options once LeBron James left. Raleigh, whatever. Keep LeBron. If he had told Dwyane Wade, that's what I'm saying. You don't know that, Steve Naismith. How do you know that LeBron James is as loyal to Dwyane Wade as you think he is? Sibella boy. All right, still no G2, though, guys. All right, but, but anyway, that's basically lead on that. I just thought this was a very interesting conversation. I think that Pat Riley is one of those guys who thinks more about the games that he's lost and the championships that he's lost than those that he's won. And that happens sometimes. Sometimes people are gifted, and they're tortured souls. Anyway, peace.