Pat Riley Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Gregg Popovich’s coaching tree is monopolizing the NBA Finals
Gregg Popovich is the winningest head coach in NBA history with 1,344 victories. Along with having the most wins for any coach in league history, we’re beginning to see another part of Popovich’s legacy take shape. The four head coaches involved in the last two NBA Finals have a tie to coach Pop, ha...
What are the Miami Heat?
Three teams have been pillars of culture in the modern NBA: The San Antonio Spurs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Miami Heat. No matter the players, these three franchises have established systems where players come in to fill a role, commit to the vision, and buy in completely. Of the trio, onl...
Whose personality is more irritating: Current Jimmy Butler or prime Dwight Howard?
Everyone has had that coworker who kind of sucks but is really good at his job so the manager looks the other way when Glen takes 20 minute out of the weekly staff meeting to brag about his weekend jet skiing. Yeah, he’s annoying, but holy shit can he sell the hell out of reasonably priced Kias. Dwi...
<em>Winning Time episode 7</em>: ‘Invisible Man’
When John C. Reilly and, ostensibly, Dr. Jerry Buss turns to address the camera, he speaks not in the future tense but the present. Reilly’s Buss is not granted foresight into what will become of his Lakers. He is far from an omniscient narrator and is in no way all-knowing, all-seeing. Instead, the...
When is HBO green-lighting Whining Time: The story of the 2021-22 Lakers?
I’m not here to defend LeBron James. As recently as two weeks ago, I gave him shit for chasing the scoring title because it’s the only thing he can win this year. James also has enough obsessed, annoying fans willing to defend him by any memes possible, and this pitiful Lakers team was a failure of ...
The Miami Heat feel like Riley’s ’90s Knicks
The Miami Heat are the only NBA contender built like a UFC promotion. Knowing that it was inevitable that Heat culture nearly turned that energy inward during a lousy loss to the Golden State Warriors. Udonis Haslem threatening to beat Jimmy Butler’s ass and Eric Spoelstra asking if Butler wanted to...
When Jimmy Butler shows you who he is…
We’ve all been down this road before, except so few want to call it what it is. It’s probably because Jimmy Butler is so eager to give the media what it wants, and that is juicy quotes and stories and also to make them feel like one of the guys. He’s happy to have them along, if not outright bring t...
<i>Winning Time</i> Episode 3: 'The Best Is Yet To Come'
Damn, even legendary Chick Hearn is a bastard? Winning Time is hell-bent on tearing down all the NBA totems. Even the adored voice of the Lakers for 40-plus years, Hearn, is caught calling black security guards “gorillas.” Writers Max Borenstein and Rodney Barnes show us the circus behind the curtai...
Keep an eye on the Heat, NBA fans
Jimmy Butler has missed 19 games, Kyle Lowry has missed 15, and Bam Adebayo has missed 25. Yet, as the NBA regular season resumes tonight after the All-Star Break, the Miami Heat are in first place in the Eastern Conference. The Heat have the same winning percentage as the second-place Chicago Bulls...
![It feels like LeBron James is done with this Lakers team after Tuesday night’s post-game presser [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/8a0a1c7973a224367148b5d438d6c797.jpg)
It feels like LeBron James is done with this Lakers team after Tuesday night’s post-game presser [Updated]
LeBron James is fed up, and it feels like he’s throwing in the towel on this year’s L.A. Lakers team after Tuesday night’s 131-116 beating at the hands of Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. When asked after the game if he thought the Lakers could reach the level of the Bucks, James got r...
Magic wants no part of scripted series about the Showtime Lakers
It’s a shame that Magic Johnson wants no part of this new HBO series about the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s. The trailer for Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, was released in early December, and the series will debut on HBO Max in March 2022....
Lakers on their way to wrong kind of history
Injuries and the novel coronavirus have played a role in it, to be sure, as has the fact that they’re now up to 22 players used this season and it’s not even January, but the Lakers stink....
The Braves are in the World Series, and the Knicks are winning in prime time: Someone bring me my damn Tamagotchi
It was throwback night in professional sports on Tuesday. The evening began with a nationally televised prime time Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on TNT… and a half hour after that started, the Atlanta Braves played in their first World Series game in 22 years. Both teams won, but that wasn’t ...
Like a comet streaking across the sky, a rare look into the personable side of Nick Saban
For the second time this season, we’ve been privileged to get a glimpse into the part of Alabama coach Nick Saban that’s not a myopic, grumpy, brooding football coach. In September, Alabama safety Jordan Battle told the media that Saban loves a good “deez nuts” joke, much to the chagrin of what soun...
When it comes to coveted coaching jobs, big names are winning out over qualifications
It seems like almost every other day there’s an announcement that a former NBA player is joining the high school or college coaching ranks....
The Miami Heat are going for it again, and whether or not you think it’ll work doesn’t matter
It’s the annual time of year where people get instantly overly fixated on whether or not things will work well before they even happen. For example, the day before NBA free agency began, reports surfaced about Kyle Lowry being signed and traded from the Toronto Raptors to the Miami Heat as soon as i...
NBA Free Agency doesn’t wait around
We always expect the dawn of NBA free agency to be on the bonkers side, and yet are always surprised with how bonkers it gets. With the offseason once again crunched as the league desperately claws back an 82-game season from players who will barely be able to stand at the end of it, teams are proba...
Deadspin fixes NBA free agency, Part III: Small Forwards
Again, if you see a dude here that you label a shooting guard, then whatever. Think of this more as “Swingmen II.” If your favorite swingman wasn’t mentioned on either, then perhaps they’ll make the sleepers for Saturday, Saturday Sleepers, whatever the editors call ‘em. If he is a part of none of t...
Pat Riley needs to re-evaluate his Heat
The Miami Heat season is over, and now we all have questions....
Francisco Lindor extension shows Steve Cohen can’t go back on his promise to build a contender
In June 2019, right after drafting Tyler Herro and K.Z. Okpala, and before trading for Jimmy Butler, Pat Riley said the following:...