{"id":83387,"date":"2025-08-14T23:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/83387\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T23:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T23:45:08","slug":"lakers-to-unveil-statue-of-former-coach-pat-riley-before-game-against-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/83387\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers to Unveil Statue of Former Coach Pat Riley Before Game Against Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> will unveil a statue of former coach Pat Riley on Feb. 22, as the Hall of Famer joins the likes of former team greats Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant in bronze outside their downtown arena.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">The Lakers will fittingly honor Riley against their long-time rival, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/boston-celtics-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Celtics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">Riley coached the Lakers from from 1981 to 1990 during the team&#8217;s &#8220;Showtime&#8221; era and won four <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> championships (1982, 1985, 1987, 1988). He led the Lakers through one of the most dynamic eras for any team in NBA history. With Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar leading an exciting roster with a groundbreaking fast-break offense, the Lakers went 533-194 (.733) in Riley\u2019s tenure and added 102 playoff victories over nine seasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">The Lakers won at least 50 games in each of his nine seasons as coach and they won at least 60 games in five straight seasons. He was named NBA Coach of the Year with the Lakers in 1989-90.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">He played for Los Angeles from 1970 to 1975, and was a team broadcaster before becoming Paul Westhead\u2019s assistant in 1979. Riley was part of the 1971=72 team that won a league-record 33 straight games and won the NBA championship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">The 80-year-old Riley also coached the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/new-york-knicks-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/miami-heat-team\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Miami Heat<\/a>. He won another championship as coach with the Heat in 2006 and now serves as their team president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">Just last season, the Heat named the court in their downtown arena after Riley in a ceremony attended by many of his former players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">Riley will become the eighth Lakers luminary to be honored with a statue in Star Plaza, which has become a popular tourist attraction for fans of the globally popular franchise. The others are Abdul-Jabbar, Johnson, Bryant, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Shaquille O\u2019Neal and broadcaster Chick Hearn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-57f930c8=\"\">Want great stories delivered right to your inbox?\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/newsletter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Create or log in to your FOX Sports account<\/a> and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!<\/p>\n<p>\n        What did you think of this story?\n      <\/p>\n<p>\n        recommended\n      <\/p>\n<p> Arrow pointing to the leftArrow pointing to the right <\/p>\n<p>Item 1 of 2<\/p>\n<p>   <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NBA.vresize.160.160.medium.0.png\" alt=\"National Basketball Association\" class=\"team-logo\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\"\/> Get more from the National Basketball Association Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers will unveil a statue of former coach Pat Riley on Feb. 22, as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-83387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}