Riley to step aside; **Update (Pg 4) Riley denies report**

[Hoops23]

If Riley will step down as a coach, he better do it this season for people stop comparing other coaches will do better than him. I bet who will ever succeed him this season and take over the current roster will not get into .4 winning %. . . . During the

[Flash3]

Wanna lick? PSYCH!
(picture)

http://www.miamiherald.com/592/story/373478.html

Riley refutes report that he might step down

As the post game press conference ended last night, and Riley was walking away, one of the reporters asked him if he could get 1 last question and Riley, who was walking away, turned back and said, 'go ahead' -- The reported asked him whether it was true that this is his last season coaching. Riley smirked and just walked away.

IDK, maybe Riley just said he'll be here for another 3 years at the beg of the season to get away from ppl continually asking him if this will be his last season, or next, or the year after, etc.

[CRHeel94]

Maybe by 3-4 slots if you just look at mock drafts, which mean absolutely nothing.

But I can't understand how getting a 19-year-old at #20 who comes in and right away starts lighting up defenses is considered a "reach". To me, that defines a "steal".

But somehow in this bizarro anti-Riley world we now live in, it's a "reach" drafting that type of player (D. Cook) at #20

I guess we should have drafted Derrick Byars or Zabian Dowell like this board was demanding! LOL ...

That's why I'm saying it was a small reach. All I'm saying is that Cook was taken a little ahead of where he was expected. Has he turned out better than expected? Sure, so it was a good pick by Riley. My memory may be fuzzy, but I thought most mocks had him being taken at the end of the first round. I believe nbadraft.net (which is the mock that everyone likes to crush) had him the highest in the low 20s.

In the interest of disclosure, I never liked Byars, though I would have been perfectly content with keeping Jason Smith.

Wright was a big reach


Maybe 3-4 slots again, going by Joe Schmoe Website mock drafts, which mean nothing. But Ainge was gonna be all over Wright just a few slots later. So it's hardly a reach getting a kid with that much natural talent at #20 in a weak draft, especially when it's pretty well-known he was gonna be drafted just a couple slots later.

Here I disagree. Maybe Ainge would have taken him. Nothing would have made me happier than Ainge to have taken him ahead of us. Wright was an extremely raw prospect.

If we give Riley credit for Cook's play justifying his selection, he needs to be on the hot seat for this selection. Even though there is still time for him, Wright has not lived up to his potential. Even in a weak draft you had 6 legit NBA guys (Jameer Nelson, Delonte West, Tony Allen, Kevin Martin, Beno Udrih, David Harrison and Varejao) go in the next ten picks or so.

The track record with second round picks is abysmal (I believe Rasual Butler is the only Riley second rounder to play meaningful minutes for the Heat),


Whose track record in Round 2 isn't abysmal? There's about a 20% success rate there on average. Is Riley's record much different?

It's not like he's been drafting at the top of round 2 to find the occasional Boozer and Arenas at #32 that come along once every 4 years, but I guess we expect him to find all-stars anyway at #50, right?

Looking at the facts ... Out of all the second-round picks Riley has made and not traded since 2000, 40% of them are still NBA players in rotations of playoff teams (Eddie House, Rasual Butler).

Is a 40% success rate in the 2nd round reason to consider Riley a "huge reacher" on draft day? Ridiculous.

Yep, only a handful of teams are decent at mining the second round. And we have generally had poor position (though the one year we had goo position we took Jerome Beasley ARGH!). That 40% is suspect though with that cutoff. Take a look at all of Riley's second round picks in his tenure. House and Butler are the only two guys to stick in the league (Rodney Buford bounced around a few places). That's two guys out of ten picks since 1995. Again that won't cripple your team, more like an opportunity squandered.

I didn't say he was a huge reacher...that was another poster. My take on Riley is that he's roughly average with his draft picks; he gets some right, he gets some wrong. He's never really been a guy to build a team through the draft, but he has an unmatched eye for salvaging guys from the scrap heap.

Good point.

Look, I'll be the first to say he has failed miserably putting together the veteran rotation needed to play his style this season. And that he should be given no free pass when it comes to being accountable for it. But calling him a "huge reacher" with draft picks is just not accurate.

I still don't know waht to make about this failed offseason. I don't know if it was Riley the coach betraying Riley the GM ("I can make these guys better") or Riley the GM betraying Riley the coach ("You can win with these guys"). I was perplexed that we let three swingmen walk and replaced them with only Penny (pre-Ricky Davis trade) with some decent options out there. I was also a little surprised--though I understand he was swinging for the fences--at our failure to address the pg problem.

[DBurks2818]

Well if you're judging what is and isn't a 'reach' by mock drafts and reports, there were a couple of sources during the last draft that San Antonio tried like heck to move up to Washington's pick to get Cook.

Obviously amateur mocks are different than what the professionals (NBA scouts and GMs) envision. Teams usually get it right in the first round.

[CRHeel94]

Teams generally get it right in the first half of the first round. The second half is a quasi crapshoot, while the second is a total crapshoot.

Of course those type of odds runs counter to the notion of reaching at those stages of the draft. In a quasi crapshoot, reaching four or five spots is negligible...as was the argument by Since88.

[Hoops23]

from Philadelphia Inquirer

Nice trial balloon by Pat Riley last week, telling the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he might step down as head coach after this season to concentrate on his duties as team president. (Riley, of course, denied he said it to the other papers in town.)

Only problem: We hear Micky Arison, the Heat's owner, has told Riles there's no way he is going to allow him to skip out on the team to go back upstairs, as he has already done once. Riley is apparently free to resign both of his jobs or keep them both, but Arison wants Riley to clean up the mess that Miami has become on the court.

Of course, Arison - he of the $5 billion net worth - has to take some share of the responsibility, too, having balked at paying luxury tax this year, a decision that cost the Heat free agents Jason Kapono and James Posey, stripping the team of most of its proven depth. . . .

Just what I thought on why Riley refutes the reports he's stepping down, Mr. Arison wants him to stay.

[Lane1974]

I don't buy that Philadelphia report. Arison and Riley are super-close. Riley gets what Riley wants, if he wants to be team pres next year and not coach, he'll do it; that report is bs.

[Flash3]

In total agreement with what Lane said.

Riley has deserved to do whatever he wants with this team.

If Riley wants to retire as a coach, and focus his duties as President, he will be allowed to do that.

Arison has the utmost respect for Riley, and vice versa.

[Hoops23]

I don't buy that Philadelphia report. Arison and Riley are super-close. Riley gets what Riley wants, if he wants to be team pres next year and not coach, he'll do it; that report is bs.

The closeness of the two doesn