get physical with former Heat guard Tyler Herro<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u2014\u00a0And why he is in Europe at the moment.<\/p>\n
Foremost, Riley said any animus with James over James\u2019 2014 Heat parting is in the past tense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just thawed,\u201d Riley said of that initial freeze, when James opted in the 2014 offseason to return to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. \u201cI\u2019ve seen him at championship fights. I\u2019ve seen him around. I\u2019ve run into him at All-Star games. We had a great embrace when (the Lakers) honored me with a statue out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, perhaps not fully thawed, but thawed enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd LeBron and I, we haven\u2019t talked much, but you let go of that stuff,\u201d Riley continued in the interview that was taped Friday. \u201cI mean, I was very disappointed because I thought we were looking at a dynasty, something dynastic. And we now had a chance to add other players to it in 2014. And when he left, it was very, very disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, if the two can make it happen again, then Riley said the past is in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to see him somewhere on the golf course one day, even though I don\u2019t play golf, or something, or see him somewhere and not be able to go up to a guy that I developed a great relationship with and all the people that were around him. And we celebrated together,\u201d Riley said of the Heat advancing to the NBA Finals in each of James\u2019 seasons with the Heat from 2010 to 2014, with NBA titles in 2012 and \u201913.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see pictures over in Championship Alley of us hugging and pouring champagne on each other\u2019s head. Those are moments that are etched in your mind forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the Adebayo-Herro incident in Las Vegas, where Adebayo confronted Herro about social-media posts and it got physical on a practice court a week ago during NBA Summer League, Riley said he wished it didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t like it,\u201d Riley said, with neither the Heat nor the NBA taking further action.<\/p>\n
Herro on social media had cast Adebayo as a limited offensive player and therefore overpaid.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even know he was upset. Because I read it and I didn\u2019t like it,\u201d Riley said of the postings by Herro, who was sent out to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Antetokounmpo trade. \u201cI didn\u2019t like what I read and I think those kind of comments, and that\u2019s what, as I say, social media has consequences, and so he got offended by it and I don\u2019t think they had time to talk about it or anything like that, but it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riley added, \u201cBoth of them are very competitive men and I was sorry to see that it happened, and I was even more sorry to see that what happened with Bam.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riley also touched on where his roster stands, noting that replacements for Herro and Norman Powell, who was signed by the Chicago Bulls in free agency, need to be identified.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody talks about shooting. That\u2019s not the main priority. Right now is another real playmaker,\u201d Riley said. \u201cYou know. I mean, Tyler was great. You know, Norman Powell. These guys could score at the end of the games and get their own shot and stuff. So we need a little more of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for his European trip with wife Chris, there was additional candor when Riley, 81, was asked about potentially retiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris and I are going, we\u2019re going over to Europe to get our blood scrubbed and get all these toxins out of our blood, and we\u2019re in the longevity and health in as much as we can be to try to extend in a way that you\u2019re vital and you\u2019re doing something that is meaningful,\u201d Riley said. \u201cYou know, I don\u2019t think about that. I just think about the next day and what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Thursday was a whirlwind for Pat Riley at Kaseya Center, as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,3914,7223,590,85],"class_list":["post-812981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}