After a long drought following Kobe Bryant’s Achilles injury in 2013 and a tumultuous 2019-20 season, the 2020 NBA Finals brought a long-awaited return to glory for the Los Angeles Lakers.
They defeated the Miami Heat there to win their 17th championship and return to the mountaintop of the basketball world.
Perhaps facing Miami wasn’t a fair fight, as it had lots of fight and resolve, but not enough offensive firepower to mount a real challenge.
But for two members of the Lakers, facing the Heat was difficult because of their ties to team president Pat Riley.
For LeBron James, it meant going up against the man who taught him how to win when he was a lost twenty-something, still in search of his first NBA title.
Via Sports Illustrated:
“I already knew how hard it was going to be,” James said. “If it was going to be locked-in in the bubble, it was going to be my team and [Riley’s].”
For Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, it was especially tough, as Riley helped make the team into the gold standard of basketball as its coach during the Showtime era of the 1980s.
“The Lakers were going head-to-head against Pat Riley made it a little bittersweet,” Buss said. “I felt gratitude of what Pat taught me and the experience that I had while he was the coach of the Lakers.”
Riley first became Riley when he took over as head coach of the Lakers early in the 1981-82 season after a player mutiny led by Magic Johnson resulted in their previous coach, Paul Westhead, getting fired.
Riley guided them to the world championship that season, and as the team matured and added pieces such as James Worthy and Byron Scott, they went from a great team to arguably the greatest ever in the mid-1980s.
After nine years and four titles in L.A., Riley moved on to coach the New York Knicks before landing in Miami in 1995. Almost right away, he forged the Heat’s much-lauded culture as both their head coach and president.
The fact that he and the Lakers crossed paths for basketball’s mightiest prize shows what a small world we all live in.
