NBA 2015-16 Season

That was not so much about him being the greatest, but more so about how he's one of the most feared GM/POPDs in the league. There isn't a SINGLE writer or NBA exec that denies that. Being a great or feared executive isn't JUST about FAs. It's a part of it. You need to draft, trades for players, trades to free cap space and make free agent picks up that fit YOUR TEAM dynamic. And what he does best, is that he has every single GM afraid of him talking to their FAs if they are available.

Here are the facts, he lost the BEST player in the world and one of the best 3 point shooters OF ALL TIME and he also lost his two best players to injury for alot of games in the season. There isn't an NBA team in the league...NONE...that would not feel those loses.

IF you do not see the above plus the fact that being a good GM does not ONLY consist of "what great free agent has he signed" or the signifigance of injuries to your best players...then maybe you need to expand your thought process as to what a true GM/POPD does.

I've never heard that outside of First Take and out of the norm bloggers. So I googled "is Pat Riley feared" and it came back with basically nothing.

Talk about drafting do you remember when the greatest passed on Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love for Micheal Beasley? Remember how great Josh McRoberts was going to be great because the greatest signed him? Yes everyone makes mistakes but Riley has not had the same sustained success that others have had.

Bottom line is the team was not in title contention pre-Lebron and is not post-Lebron so I am not sure what there is to fear. Sorry that's just a fact.
 
I've never heard that outside of First Take and out of the norm bloggers. So I googled "is Pat Riley feared" and it came back with basically nothing.

Talk about drafting do you remember when the greatest passed on Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love for Micheal Beasley? Remember how great Josh McRoberts was going to be great because the greatest signed him? Yes everyone makes mistakes but Riley has not had the same sustained success that others have had.

Bottom line is the team was not in title contention pre-Lebron and is not post-Lebron so I am not sure what there is to fear. Sorry that's just a fact.

You OBVIOUSLY don't know how to search: in Google, my search was "most feared NBA GMs"

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10719137/sizing-nba-front-offices

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/top-of-the-class-general-managers/

The year Michael Beasley was taken, you do know the consensus by literally every single GM was Rose and Beasley... one and two.

Here is a little sample of the comments:
1....
I hate to break it to what looked like a very sober, perhaps disappointed Pat Riley, but the Heat won this draft. They walked away with arguably the best player in the draft and then got a second-round steal at point guard, a position at which Miami really needed help.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=DraftGrades-080627

2...
The Heat came out on top in this draft. They got a guy in Beasley that will average 20 and 10 in his sleep. I wouldn't be surprised if he put up 25 to 28 a game eventually. His game is so smooth, whether it is in the post or lighting it up from three. He can either be a 3 or a 4. Pairing Beasley with Dwyane Wade makes a potent combo. The Heat are now back in the playoff discussion and when they free up cap space for next year they will be in the championship hunt.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/33458-2008-nba-draft-grades-and-recap

3...
Whether they wanted him or not, Miami ended up landing Michael Beasley, who many feel could emerge as the best player in this year’s draft.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ys-draftreportcards062808

Do I need to go on? So to state he made a mistake, that maybe true, but literally every single team in the NBA that would have had the #2 overall pick would have made that very same mistake. As far as Josh McRoberts, he was injured HTF do evaulate an injured player? Next time, do a little homework and submit some links with your comments. :glasses
 
I have to laugh because in none of those links does it list Riley the best GM in the NBA now or ever. Because he's not, never has been. Maybe you should be consistent in what you're writing. Pat Riley and the Heat are irrelevant without Lebron. They're not getting Durant.

So now the godfather listens to the media on who to draft? Good to know, is Brian Windhorst the real GM of the Heat? I know Lebatard is the mascot.

Is that all you have is this injury excuse? Availability is part of a player, sounds like poor scouting to me.
 
I have to laugh because in none of those links does it list Riley the best GM in the NBA now or ever. Because he's not, never has been. Maybe you should be consistent in what you're writing. Pat Riley and the Heat are irrelevant without Lebron. They're not getting Durant.

So now the godfather listens to the media on who to draft? Good to know, is Brian Windhorst the real GM of the Heat? I know Lebatard is the mascot.

Is that all you have is this injury excuse? Availability is part of a player, sounds like poor scouting to me.

You must have had issues with reading comprehession in school becausw there are NONE...nada, zilch, zero posts by me that says he is best NBA GM now or ever. I have been VERY consistant with what I have posted and my links rebutting all of your statements. ALSO, at no point have I said Durrant was coming or signing here. You may need to follow-up to confirm your stance.

Maybe, just maybe you are a little disappoint how irrelevant you Celtics have been since your Big Three have left. ESPECIALLY when Riley told Ainge to "STFU and manage his own team"...
 
And once again, AS I STATED earlier, since you coincidentally keep forgetting and I will remind you once more.. the article was not so much about him being the best...and once again, since you STILL HAVE reading comprehension issues, it was about how he is considered by MANY as one of the most feared GMs in the league.

And you Celtics did make it in, and yet they were still irrelevant.
 
I think losing those games and missing out on the playoffs last year helped set the Heat in a better direction over the long term. Their pick looks to develop, and with Dragic, it is sure to help them turn that tide as more than just Wade and Bosh. Oh, and there's that guy named Whiteside. That guy's pretty good. He's going to get himself PAID and with the cap increase, that's a huge pay increase incoming.
 
I think losing those games and missing out on the playoffs last year helped set the Heat in a better direction over the long term. Their pick looks to develop, and with Dragic, it is sure to help them turn that tide as more than just Wade and Bosh. Oh, and there's that guy named Whiteside. That guy's pretty good. He's going to get himself PAID and with the cap increase, that's a huge pay increase incoming.

IF...and this is always a big IF with new faces, IF they can get rotations set by Christmas, they will be a VERY tough team. And as always, injuries will and can play a major role when it not only involves your best player/s and/or players that are considered tops in the league... contrary to certain beliefs.
 
Celtics just beat OKC and Houston back to back on the road. Pretty good for a team without any players that are TOPS in the league. :rolleyes:
 
And once again, AS I STATED earlier, since you coincidentally keep forgetting and I will remind you once more.. the article was not so much about him being the best...and once again, since you STILL HAVE reading comprehension issues, it was about how he is considered by MANY as one of the most feared GMs in the league.

And you Celtics did make it in, and yet they were still irrelevant.

Again, here is the tagline in the article YOU posted. Instead of questioning my reading comprehension maybe you should go back a reread the article.

Pat Riley is hands down the best GM ever.

 
Again, here is the tagline in the article YOU posted. Instead of questioning my reading comprehension maybe you should go back a reread the article.

Pat Riley is hands down the best GM ever.

From pot #20 on this thread...proving once again, you have reading comprehession issues:

That was not so much about him being the greatest, but more so about how he's one of the most feared GM/POPDs in the league.
 
From pot #20 on this thread...proving once again, you have reading comprehession issues:

Here's the whole article. Please, please point out to me where it states he is "feared". Most of this was based on getting Dragic, who putting it nicely has been less than stellar.

Home
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[Op-Ed] Why Pat Riley is the Greatest GM of All Time
shussain
February 25, 2015
Pat-Riley.jpeg

The Empire Strikes Back.. Pat Riley is hands down the best GM ever.

Eight months ago, with LeBron James headed back to the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chris Bosh contemplating playing for the Houston Rockets, it looked like the grand experiment in South Beach had come to an end. With two of the Big Three gone, would a hobbled Dwyane Wade want to stick around for a massive rebuilding project or would the Heat have been better off moving their franchise player and starting over? It would be hard for any franchise to recover from losing the best player in the NBA in the prime of his career, particularly one that didn’t have a lot of its future first-round picks.

Instead, with their backs against the wall, Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra convinced Bosh to stay, Wade to re-up and Luol Deng to come aboard. From there, they benefited from the unlikely emergence of Hassan Whiteside, creating a core of four two-way players at SG, SF, PF and C. Just like that, Miami was only one more piece away from being an elite team again. Mario Chalmers had proven himself, but the Heat needed more of an offensive punch at the position since LeBron’s departure meant they no longer had a de-facto PG holding the ball for most of the game.

Pretty much every team in the league would benefit from having Goran Dragic dropped in their lap for nothing more than future considerations, but few more so than Miami, who can plug him into a massive role as a secondary ball-handler and shot creator next to Wade. Dragic was looking for a bigger role in the offense and the Heat were looking for more offense from their PG – it was a match made in heaven that instantly puts Miami back on the NBA map.

Dragic works on two levels – he’s a high-level three-point shooter (career 36% on 2.9 3’s a game) who can space the floor for Wade and Bosh and he’s a high-level creator (16.2 points and 4.1 assists a game this season) who can command the offense when they are off the floor. In all likelihood, Spoelstra will alternate Wade and Dragic in the same way he used Wade and LeBron so that one of the two will be on the floor the entire game. It’s the same partnership that worked so well for Dragic and Eric Bledsoe in Phoenix last season before the arrival of Isaiah Thomas disrupted everyone’s chi.

The even better news is that the arrival of Dragic means the team will not have to lean so heavily on Wade, both this season and going forward. For as great a player as Wade still is, he’s no longer capable of holding up physically over an 82-game season and he needs a co-pilot that will allow him maintenance days and periods of rest to ensure he has fuel in the tank come playoff time. When Wade is out, Dragic can gun the ball to his heart’s content, dominating time of possession in a way he never could sharing floor time with Bledsoe and Thomas.

The combination of Bosh and Whiteside, meanwhile, is a perfect fit for Dragic’s skills, as Miami now has a prototype spread pick-and-roll alignment, with a rim-rolling 5, a stretch 4 and an elite 1. Spoelstra and Hornacek are reading from a similar playbook of spreading the floor, moving the ball and running pick-and-rolls, which minimizes the amount of decision-making their players have to do and allows them to thrive in max space.

The five-man unit of Dragic, Wade, Deng, Bosh and Whiteside fits almost perfectly together and they have an average age of only 29. They aren’t super young but they aren’t so old that Miami is thrust in a win-now situation. If need be, the Heat can afford to take it easy for the rest of the season and make sure that the older members of their core have recovered physically, which became even more important when news of Bosh’s struggles with a blood clot in his lungs broke late Thursday night.

Going forward, the only reliable contributors on their bench look like Mario Chalmers and Josh McRoberts, so they will need to fill in a few spots in the off-season and hope that Shabazz Napier and James Ennis can grow into bigger roles. Without LeBron, you would think Miami would need to take a more aggressive approach to upgrading the back end of their rotation than they did over the last four seasons.

The good news is that all their moves line up really well with what should be a massively expanded cap in 2016 when only Bosh and McRoberts are currently under contract. They will pay Dragic this offseason and Whiteside the next, but by that point Wade and Deng will see their contracts expire and they will be at the point in their careers when getting the most money possible is no longer the primary concern. One thing is for sure – there are few markets that scare the league more when they have cap space than Miami.

While it’s very unlikely that Riley can pull off anything similar to the coup in 2010 in 2016, he shouldn’t have too given the amount of talent already on hand. From there, what player wouldn’t want to live in South Beach, play for a franchise with a long history of winning and share the floor with a bunch of unselfish stars in a 4-out system that gets the best out of everyone’s game? There’s a reason Dragic asked for Miami, New York and Los Angeles in his trade demands with Phoenix and there’s an even bigger reason why he ended up with the Heat.

Those are the three glamour markets in the league – the difference is that the Knicks and the Lakers have been into the ground in recent years while the Heat are coming off four straight trips to the NBA Finals. Pat Riley has won in Los Angeles, he has won in New York and he has won in Miami. He knows how to sell the bright lights and the big city and he has a long history of bringing success wherever he goes. Back in 2010, the story was that Riley dumped all his championship rings on the table in front of LeBron and told him he know how to get more.

Riley has been in the NBA for over 40 years and he plays the game at a whole different level than most front offices. He knows the league is about stars and he knows that stars want to play in cities like Miami, which is why you haven’t seen him try to run the show in a place like Utah or Indiana. His hubris might end up backfiring on him in the form of the unprotected first round pick in 2021 he had to give up to acquire Dragic but that’s so far into the future that it might as well not even exist at this point.

For now, Riley has his man and the Heat are going to be a serious threat in the Eastern Conference for the indefinite future. The Empire just struck back.
 
Did I say at any point that it was said?? Man you are something else, the simple fact that there all these articles at about him clearly shows this. These are from sports writers everywhere.

You are THAT guy. You are that guy that goes strictly on whether you like a player/team and base how good they are on that criteria. I hate the Pats, and still have respect enough to know they are the best team.. And have been in at least the decade. I hate the Cavs and I am smart enough to know they are the best in the east...but you are THAT guy that unless it's your team, nothing compares to them. Not in the present or the past. SMH.
 
As far as Dragic is concerned, he never played with Bosh, Wade, Deng and Whiteside at the same time until this year. There are adjustments that need to be made. But you have already passed judgement... On a six.. 6 game sample size. Really?
 
IMO,the Heat have more stars/potential stars now than when they had just LeBron,Wade,Bosh,& a bunch of stiffs left over due to cap restrictions. Maybe they're not showing it now,but I imagine that they'll gel together as a team & make the playoffs. I'd rank the Heat better than the Cavs(the Cavs will finally learn to regret trading Wiggins to the Timberwolves for Love,especially if the Timberwolves make it to the playoffs this season & the Cavs don't).
Edit: I predict that the Cavs will lose BOTH Irving & Love to injuries,unless I just woke up from a cave & that has already happened.
 
Did I say at any point that it was said?? Man you are something else, the simple fact that there all these articles at about him clearly shows this. These are from sports writers everywhere.

You are THAT guy. You are that guy that goes strictly on whether you like a player/team and base how good they are on that criteria. I hate the Pats, and still have respect enough to know they are the best team.. And have been in at least the decade. I hate the Cavs and I am smart enough to know they are the best in the east...but you are THAT guy that unless it's your team, nothing compares to them. Not in the present or the past. SMH.

Me? No sorry you are THAT guy who thinks every move your team makes is pure genius. If the HEAT sign or trade for a guy in your opinion they're awesome. Pat Riley never makes a mistake and here's some blog written by a nobody with one name to prove it. You're THAT guy who has an excuse for every scenario where your team fails. Injuries, blah, playing time, blah, blah.

And where did I say the HEAT weren't one of the best teams when they had Lebron? Who was the 1st person on here to come to Wade's defense when he broke Rondo's elbow? That was you, THAT guy, who defends every thing to do with your team. And there's actually nothing wrong with that because that's what we as fans do.

Oh and what's so wrong with having a prolonged sports debate/discussion. To me they're fun.
 

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