MIAMI — If all of the indications prove right, Miami Heat president and potentate Pat Riley is, at age 78, about to score what would feel like the last hurrah of an epic NBA career. It would also afford him a final, resounding I-told-you-so, even though he would never tell you so.
Riley made basketball matter in Miami, a football town, and has orchestrated three championship parades down Biscayne Boulevard since 2006. Yet to a growing or at least loud subset of critical fans he had become the aging leader whose ability to close a big deal had left him. The standard he set was so high that reaching two Finals the past four years was not good enough as the whales he failed to boat became the evidence used against him.
Now: Damian Lillard, certified whale. Seven-time All-Star point guard off a 32.2-point scoring season. A 3-point marksman who made the NBA’s 75th Anniversary all-time team.
