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When discussing the greatest basketball minds of all time there’s only a few names that can be discussed as one of the greats. Many say the conversation ends with the late, great Red Auerbach.
Red Auerbach changed the game we know today, starting out as coach of the Celtics in 1950 and turned them into one of the greatest dynasties in the history of professional sports alone.
Auerbach spent seven years building a well oiled machine as he finally broke through winning his first championship in 1957. The Boston Celtics went on to win eight more championships from 1959 to 1966.
It was then when Auerbach decided to move on from coaching and fully focus on his executive role naming the legendary Bill Russell head coach at the start of the 1966-67 season.
Auerbach went on to win seven more championships as a general manager and executive of the Boston Celtics winning two in the late 60’s, two in the 70’s and three in the 80’s.
Auerbach appeared in a total of 19 NBA Finals which is a whopping 25% of all NBA Finals in the history of the NBA.
Winning 16 championships in 19 total final appearances on Auerbach’s resume as a coach and executive will make him easily be considered the greatest basketball mind of all time.
Others might consider it to be Bill Sharman who won four championships under Red Auerbach in Boston in 1957, 1959-1961. He then coached the 1972 Lakers to their first championship since their move to Los Angeles.
He then was famously known for being one of the masterminds behind the Showtime Lakers winning five championships as an executive making him a 10 time NBA champion.
The conversation should start and finish with Pat Riley, who is now entering his 19th Finals appearance as a player, coach, and executive which matches the late Red Auerbach. Once again that's 25% of all NBA Finals…
Pat Riley started his career off as a scrappy role player for the San Diego Rockets in 1967 and was then drafted in the 1970 expansion draft by the Portland Trail Blazers.
Portland eventually shipped Riley off to Los Angeles that year where he spent five seasons winning one championship in 1972 under head coach Bill Sharman.
After his playing career he did some color commentary for the Lakers before Paul Westhead hired Riley as an assistant coach in 1979. After that everything Riley touched turned to gold.
Westhead was fired six games into the 1982 season after Magic Johnson requested a trade from the Lakers due to his unhappiness with him. Riley became the interim head coach and “Showtime” arrived.
His designer suits and slick backed hair made him an icon in Hollywood while at the same time molding some of the best basketball ever played to date.
After dominating the 80’s with five championships over eight appearances he took on a new challenge in the big apple becoming head coach of the Knicks in 1991.
While Riley didn’t win a ring in New York mainly due to the Chicago Bulls and a 3-2 series lead that was blown in the 1994 NBA Finals to the Houston Rockets, he still turned the Knicks into a powerhouse team that was not to be messed with.
He gave a desperate franchise, who had been holding on to their success in the 70’s, hope again. If it wasn’t for the greatest basketball player to ever play the game (Michael Jordan), there very well could be a few more rings on Riley’s fingers.
His tenure as an executive starting in 1995 is just as impressive, if not even more impressive than anything he’s done over his coaching career. Since he took over the Miami Heat have become a staple franchise in the NBA.
Riley has built nothing but winning basketball in Miami and it all started with drafting Dwayne Wade in 2003 and pairing him with Shaquille O'neal in 2005 under head coach Stan Van Gundy.
It became very apparent that Riley wanted Van Gundy gone after the 2005 season with his inability to get it done with Wade and O’neal. So when Van Gundy stepped down 21 games into the season, the Godfather made himself the Don once again.
Later that year Riley and the Heat won their first championship in franchise history and it was only the start for Riley’s legacy in Miami.
Only five years removed from the acquisition of Shaquille O’neal, Pat Riley pulled off one of the most shocking free agency signings in NBA history by signing LeBron James and Chris Bosh to pair up with Dwayne Wade.
Riley managed to somehow, someway convince LeBron James to come to Miami with competing markets like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles all wanting a piece of the chosen one.
While many, including myself, believe the LeBron tenure in Miami to be somewhat of a disappointment, Riley built a championship roster overnight and made the Heat become an all time NBA franchise.
After the four seasons of the big three the Heat passed the New York Knicks, Houston Rockets in all time championships. Also tying the Detroit Pistons and Philadelphia 76er’s in all time championships.
For a team who was only established in 1988, and made Riley an executive in 1995, in 18 short seasons they became a dominant name across the NBA. It doesn’t stop there either.
After the collapse of one of the biggest trio’s in NBA history, Riley stuck by head coach Erik Spoelstra, drafted key players like Bam Adebayo (2017), Tyler Herro (2019), and traded for (via sign and trade) a hungry star in Jimmy Butler.
In just his first season Jimmy Butler led this Heat team to the NBA Finals in the infamous bubble where he matched up against the LeBron led Los Angeles Lakers. A massive storyline series.
Pat Riley put the Lakers back on the map in the 1980’s and LeBron made Miami a piece of NBA history in the early 2010’s. Erik Spoelstra faced up against his former player, who secretly butted heads with the head coach.
While the heavily favored Lakers prevailed over the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler, Erik Spoelstra, and Pat Riley once again have built a roster very quickly and turned them into a championship contender.
This all eventually ties back to one thing and one thing only, Pat Riley has had the midas touch over a half a century long. Whether it was as a player, coach, or executive, he has been a winner. Something the great Red Auerbach has not done.
What he could pull off here with a series win over the Denver Nuggets is something that Red Auerbach, Bill Sharman, Phil Jackson, or Gregg Popovich has ever done.
If the roster he built manages to win this series he will have won a championship in five different decades over the course of his career. He won in 1972 as a player, the 1980’s, the 2000’s, the 2010’s and now potentially the 2020’s.
Since his first ring in 1972, there have been 17 NBA franchises where only eight teams made the playoffs. We now are in a much more advanced game with 30 franchises, 16 playoff teams, and a much more athletically gifted game.
The times have changed, but Pat Riley hasn’t. He’s adapted to every change and built winners around him for over half a century. No one has been able to build and adapt to so many changes like Pat Riley has.
His sheer dominance alone over the course of 50 plus seasons across every role in a franchise alone, makes him the greatest basketball mind in the history of the NBA.
Now Pat Riley finds his team down 1-0 to the heavily favored Denver Nuggets, with all odds stacked against him. This is nothing that he and the franchises he’s coached or built haven’t faced before.
In Riley’s previous eight championships as a coach or an executive, he’s lost game one a total of five times compared to walking away victorious only three times.
Starting tonight we will see if the Miami Heat will be able to erase this 1-0 deficit and head back to south beach with a split series and get one game closer to another notch on the Gucci belt of Pat Riley.
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