Pat Riley speaks throughout a ceremony celebrating his courtroom dedication at Kaseya Middle on October 23, 2024 in Miami, Florida. | Picture by Carmen Mandato / Getty Photographs through AFP
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The Los Angeles Lakers will honor former coach Pat Riley with a statue outdoors their downtown enviornment.
The Lakers introduced Monday that they’ve commissioned a statue to face in Star Plaza immortalizing the coach who received 4 championships with the “Showtime” Lakers of the Eighties. Riley additionally received championship rings with the Lakers as a participant and an assistant coach.
The 79-year-old Riley has been a part of the Miami Warmth as a coach and government for the previous three a long time, however his NBA roots are planted firmly with the Lakers. He performed for Los Angeles from 1970 to 1975, and he was a workforce broadcaster earlier than turning into Paul Westhead’s assistant in 1979.
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He took over as head coach in 1981 and led the Lakers by way of some of the dynamic eras for any workforce in NBA historical past. With Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar main an thrilling workforce with a groundbreaking fast-break offense, the Lakers went 533-194 (.733) in Riley’s tenure and added 102 playoff victories over 9 largely excellent seasons.
“Pat is a Lakers icon,” Lakers proprietor Jeanie Buss stated in a press release. “His professionalism, dedication to his craft and recreation preparation paved the way in which for the teaching we see throughout the league as we speak. My dad acknowledged Pat’s obsession and talent to take gifted gamers and coalesce them right into a championship workforce. The fashion of basketball Pat and the Lakers created within the 80s remains to be the blueprint for the group as we speak: an entertaining and successful workforce.”
Riley will turn into the eighth Lakers luminary to be honored with a statue in Star Plaza, which has turn into a preferred vacationer attraction. The others are Abdul-Jabbar, Johnson, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and broadcaster Chick Hearn.
Riley went on to educate the New York Knicks for 4 seasons earlier than turning into the Warmth’s workforce president and coach in 1995. He has remained Miami’s president ever since, and he received one other NBA title in 2006 throughout his two stints because the Warmth’s head coach.
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