The Best of SBS: NBA Coaching Legends

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Speaker 10 Welcome to South Beach Sessions, the smile on my face. You haven't seen it that much, but we've got an old friend in the house.

Speaker 10 He's old and a friend, and he's also an old friend, and I want to make him comfortable because these things can get intimate and vulnerable. So I have a gift here.

Speaker 10 I've been thinking for weeks, how am I going to do this? I haven't seen him in a while. I haven't talked to him in person in a while.
So

Speaker 10 here you go. I thought for a long time about how to do this correctly.

Speaker 3 I thought you were a lot hard about this. Yes.

Speaker 10 Are you still opening the mornings with one of those?

Speaker 7 I do. Every morning.
Yeah. I've tried not to take them too far into the afternoon, but since I'll be up late tonight, I can have one.
Okay.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 you have not yet quenched that habit. You haven't killed that habit, even though you should be drinking water.
You're taking care of yourself.

Speaker 10 You look a lot healthier, as you always do the moment that you get off of the sidelines.

Speaker 7 I have had people say that. There is a lot less stress, but to be honest, with the weight loss, it was all

Speaker 7 It was all medication and it was all the

Speaker 7 having gotten so bad with my blood sugar that I was a type 2 diabetic. I got put on Munjaro, and that's all I've done.

Speaker 7 I haven't changed my diet a whole lot, I, you know, or anything else, so it's not really that I've done anything.

Speaker 10 I have talked to you a great deal over the years about something that perpetually confounds me, which is you always returning to basketball when it seems to make you a good deal more miserable,

Speaker 10 when you are a balanced person who loves his family, and yet there's something about the misery and the coaching that is forever calling you.

Speaker 10 Have you sort of reconciled now that you're approaching retirement, government retirement age, even though you're going to keep working for a while I imagine?

Speaker 10 Have you reconciled the fact that you've devoted your life to a thing that consumes you and is

Speaker 10 a forever pursuit, but also had a lot of stuff in it that you didn't like so much?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I actually really regret that I didn't

Speaker 7 allow myself or didn't do what I needed to do to enjoy it more. I mean, you know,

Speaker 7 because there's a lot about it that's good. And that's what draws me back all the time, the camaraderie of a team.

Speaker 7 And, you know, I was just saying to Mike Ryan out here, you guys know what that feels like, the camaraderie of a team working toward a goal. I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing better than that.

Speaker 7 And the challenge of competition,

Speaker 7 it's addictive. And

Speaker 7 I really wish that I would have enjoyed it more in the moment and made it more enjoyable for the people around me, foremost my family, but even the people within the organizations that I worked in, that I would have made it more enjoyable for everybody around.

Speaker 10 You're such a good learner, though. Why couldn't you?

Speaker 7 You know, that's a great question. I mean, maybe I'm not a great learner, but also.

Speaker 3 No, you are. You are a great learner.

Speaker 7 I just think in the moment,

Speaker 7 in the moments, I don't know.

Speaker 7 I just couldn't enjoy it.

Speaker 7 And it's funny because I run into people all the time, you know, who I'll meet for the first time and, you know, will be talking to me and say, oh, that must have been so exciting.

Speaker 7 That must have been so fun. And I'm thinking, damn, it should have been.

Speaker 10 Is it the pressurization of it all? So many people relying on you. The margins for winning can be so small.
You have so little control as the coach, even though you guys are control freaks.

Speaker 10 You have so little control when the ball is out there. You're watching like the rest of us, no matter how much you've prepared.

Speaker 10 And I don't know how much impact you think you can have on the results, but the coach on the other sideline also thinks he's having.

Speaker 10 So what you end up doing is dedicating your life to a pursuit that's rewarding, fulfilling, but

Speaker 10 this is an affliction for most coaches, what you're talking about here.

Speaker 7 Yeah, what really got me, Dan, is I don't care how good a job you do, and I should have understood this happens,

Speaker 7 but there will always be things happen in the game where

Speaker 7 I would look and go, damn, I didn't have them prepared for that.

Speaker 7 Or this was the wrong approach, and I put us behind the eight ball. And so that would happen even within the game itself.

Speaker 7 And then after the game, you go back and you look at the film, and you can just line up the mistakes you made.

Speaker 7 And I'm talking about in your best game, I'm talking about you get a 30-point win and you're looking and saying, we weren't ready for that. They could have taken advantage for that.
We got lucky.

Speaker 7 They missed here.

Speaker 7 And so

Speaker 7 in that pursuit of always trying to do things better, which I think is good,

Speaker 7 but to just be able to say, what, I really wish I could have just said, okay, win or lose, what could we have done better?

Speaker 7 Let's approach that and then let's move on instead of it weighed me down, the mistakes. I mean, affected the way I thought about myself and everything else.
And

Speaker 7 if you're not thinking well of yourself, then you're not happy. I mean, that's sort of the cycle that I went through.

Speaker 10 I want to talk to you about joy because it is something that I have struggled with in my life through a series of

Speaker 10 family patterns and embeddings that imprinted me that once I got into marriage and later in life, I learned some things that I had to learn about making sure to slow down and try to find the gratitude in things that made me present, right?

Speaker 10 Because

Speaker 10 I can't tell you, even though I've heard that expression all my life about being present,

Speaker 10 I cannot tell you how much fear of the future or regret of the past are areas that plague people.

Speaker 10 And if you can just be in whatever moment you're in and summon a gratitude for that moment, that's what you're lamenting here, that you were too,

Speaker 10 you needed to get to the next thing, the next city, the next victory.

Speaker 10 And it just seems like, it really does seem like it should have been more enjoyable.

Speaker 10 You would have never dreamed at any point in your life that the Van Gundy name would resonate throughout basketball the way it does.

Speaker 7 No, not at all. And the NBA was never something that I even thought about, you know, other than to watch it like a fan.
I mean, you know, we came up. We both were small college players.

Speaker 7 My dad was a small college coach. I thought that's where I would be, and I would have been perfectly happy being there.

Speaker 7 And then through some lucky developments, you know, you get a chance to be at this level. And I do appreciate that.
I am grateful for that now. But as you said, in the moment, I didn't.

Speaker 7 In the moment, I regretted whatever mistakes I had made in the previous game and

Speaker 7 worried about what was coming up in the next game and what I needed to do. It was never about that moment.

Speaker 7 Other than, you know, my brother has said, which is a great line and it's really true, there's the best five minutes in life are after a great road win, you know, and he laughs and says his daughter said, you know, what about when we were born?

Speaker 7 And he said, I said what I said.

Speaker 7 You know, now I don't agree with that to that extent. But yeah, there are those brief moments after a great win where you feel good, but I didn't do it for long enough.

Speaker 7 Not that you're going to take a week while other games are coming, but.

Speaker 7 take the night at least, you know, and have a, you know, have a beer with your wife or something and enjoy it and get back to work the next morning.

Speaker 7 No, I I mean, I was already on the mistakes of that game, even if we won. And what are we doing tomorrow to get ready for the next team? And that's just, I think most coaches are like that.

Speaker 7 I don't think I'm different than most guys.

Speaker 10 What do you view as sort of your happiest year and your unhappiest year in coaching?

Speaker 10 I would imagine getting to the finals with Orlando.

Speaker 7 Yeah, you know what, though? As I look back, actually, no,

Speaker 7 my happiest year in coaching was 1983-84, coaching Castleton State College in 1984-85, two years there where coaching at Castleton was unbelievable. Good players, good teams, fabulous people who

Speaker 7 literally two weeks ago, eight of them came down. Guys played for me 40 years ago, and eight of them came down because

Speaker 7 you know, they knew I'd been through some things, and so they were going to spend an entire weekend with me the weekend of the men's and women's Final Fours and stayed with me.

Speaker 7 That group was really close. In the NBA, honestly, the most enjoyable year as a head coach was my first year, my year here, 03, 04.
We got off to an 0-7 start. We were 5-15.

Speaker 7 You know, and then to come all the way back and win 17 of our last 21 and make it to the second round of the playoffs.

Speaker 7 And that was a group where a lot of guys were either getting their first opportunity. Obviously, it was Dwayne Wade's rookie year.
Rafer Alston was really getting his first opportunity.

Speaker 7 Damon Jones, you know, we had had the year before and had that great,

Speaker 7 you know, or we had, yeah, that year. And so guys were getting their first big opportunity to play.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 it was just fun. I mean, it was.

Speaker 7 You know, nobody had any real expectations on us.

Speaker 7 It was also Udonis' rookie year, Lamar Odom's first year and only year in Miami. I mean, it was just

Speaker 7 my most fun year in the NBA.

Speaker 10 People loved that team, 42 and 40, that team won a playoff series.

Speaker 7 I mean, it was great. It went seven games.
Home team won every game. And, I mean, Dwayne Wade's first ever playoff game.
He hits a game winner. You know, I mean, there were just a lot of

Speaker 7 great memories. But again, and I...

Speaker 7 I love the staff. I mean, you know, it was Eric and Bob McAdoo, Keith Askins.

Speaker 7 You know, those guys were great and people I still stay in touch with, like very, very much and will always appreciate for the way they helped me through that

Speaker 7 first year. You know, there's no way I wouldn't have even made it through, let alone had any success without those three guys.

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Speaker 10 What do you regard as the worst of the years that you remember? As like, man, that was a real suffering.

Speaker 10 I imagine the pressure in Detroit at some point when I was watching you from afar, because you had the whole organization on you, all the responsibility of that.

Speaker 10 It seemed from afar like that was a lot, even though you improved the team and it hasn't been as good since you left.

Speaker 7 Yeah, listen, I mean, what got me there was

Speaker 7 when we got to that 2017-18 season,

Speaker 7 you know, coming down the stretch and trying to fight for a playoff spot and realizing in my own mind that probably what was on the line was the jobs of 50 people because I was the president and I had all these people.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I've said, I know I've said this to you. I think what.

Speaker 7 fans don't fully understand when they're screaming for the head of the coach and the guy to be fired. And we're going to have it come up at the end of these playoffs with a lot of NBA coaches.

Speaker 7 I don't expect them to worry about the head coach. Like we're, we're set.
We make great money. It's not a problem.
But in my case there, I had 50 people who

Speaker 7 were going to lose their jobs. And a lot of those people are making 50, 60, $70,000.

Speaker 10 And you know their families.

Speaker 7 Right, absolutely. You know their families and they've got young families and all of that.
They're going to be out the door, too.

Speaker 7 And that's not fans' responsibility. I just think when fans get so vicious about it, they don't have that perspective.

Speaker 7 And it really pisses me off with the media sometimes who are doing the coach on the hot seat bit and the whole thing. And I know I've said this to you too, but, you know.

Speaker 7 Back when there were so many

Speaker 7 media layoffs, and I'm not even talking as much people behind the mics, but back when

Speaker 7 the written part of like ESPN, you know, laid off a lot of writers and stuff.

Speaker 7 And, you know, they expect us to all feel sorry for them. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're the guys who were, who want to spend half your career writing about how coaches should lose their jobs.

Speaker 7 Well, here you are. Well, here you are.
So a little more sensitivity to, you know, the guy in the video room, maybe I deserve to lose my job in Detroit. The guy in the video room didn't.

Speaker 7 He busted his ass. He was in there.
He was in there every damn day for 14 hours doing a great job and he's being punished for my decisions like let's tone down the

Speaker 7 you know excitement over people losing their jobs you mentioned spolstra could you see it early with him was it that obvious it was and and i will uh

Speaker 7 you know i know that's hard for people to believe but i remember having been here only a couple of months and i remember saying to my wife at home and to my brother and father, who obviously are basketball people, like

Speaker 7 this guy's great, you know, and I've only done that, you know, he was early in his career, obviously, right at the beginning.

Speaker 7 And I did that one other time, and it was with Sean Miller when I was at Wisconsin, and I was only months on the job. And I was like, whoa, this is a different level.

Speaker 7 And I think what amazed me is when I came here,

Speaker 7 I'd already been in college coaching for 14 years. So I was new to the NBA, but I wasn't new to coaching.
And to see somebody in their first job who had

Speaker 7 his intelligence, his knowledge of the game, his approach, and players

Speaker 7 immediately

Speaker 7 trusted him. Like he would go work with them.
And he just had this air about him. The thing with Eric, and I think players...
still catch on to it with him.

Speaker 7 It's always about them and about making the team better. It's never about him.
And so I think they are attracted to that right away.

Speaker 7 And then his competence, you know, he can go out there and teach you and help you get better. Yeah, I saw all of that right away.
And then just his demeanor. I mean, he's not like me.

Speaker 7 He's not with the ups and downs. He may be internally, but externally, he's very even keel.
And so, yeah.

Speaker 7 Now, if you had asked me at that time, this guy is going to be a Hall of Fame guy and go to six finals in 13 years and all of that. Do you see that? I mean, who the hell knows?

Speaker 7 But was he going to be a great coach? Yeah.

Speaker 10 You mentioned his competence. I remember his confidence and being struck by the idea that he would say flatly in his first year, it is not my job for them to like me.
It doesn't matter. Stop.

Speaker 10 Like, don't ask me questions about that. Don't care whether they like me.
That has nothing to do with my job.

Speaker 7 No, that's exactly right. And I think, you know, one of the things, and we were, you know, we were both here together for a long time.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 the one thing that has really stuck with me about

Speaker 7 player-coach relationships, Pat Riley said when we were here, and he would say it a lot, is

Speaker 7 the player-coach relationship is a business relationship.

Speaker 7 that is designed to get a result. That's what it's about.
And,

Speaker 7 you know, my brother talks all the time about if you want to know what a guy's re, how good a guy's relationship is with his players, watch him on the court because that's what matters.

Speaker 7 It's not whether the guy likes you, doesn't like you.

Speaker 7 Does he go out there and perform? If he does, the player-coach relationship's outstanding.

Speaker 7 If he doesn't, he may be saying, God, this guy's my favorite coach ever, and he's playing like crap, then the player-coach relationship isn't working.

Speaker 7 The personal relationship may be, but not the player-coach relationship. And I think a lot of people in the media get that wrong.
Like, they just want to go ask, do you like a guy?

Speaker 7 Do you not like a guy? And then, you know, the players in the locker room don't like him. Really? Well, his team's winning all the time.
So something's working. And Eric has understood that from

Speaker 7 the get-go. And listen, human nature, we all want everybody to like us.
I mean, it's not like

Speaker 7 he doesn't care. I think people, when he makes a comment like that, people will think he doesn't care if people like him.
Of course he cares.

Speaker 7 He's just able to look past that and understand that's not what's important here in the business of me coaching the team.

Speaker 10 Who's more joyless about the coaching process? You or your brother?

Speaker 7 Oh, God, that's a hell of a question. I don't know.
I would think that we're about the same. We were just so different temperamentally.
I mean, I sort of wear my emotions on my sleeves.

Speaker 7 Jeff's very, you know, composed. And so,

Speaker 7 but I would say we're, we're pretty much the same. Um, I really think if somebody would give him another chance, I honestly do think that he would be different with all of that.
I do.

Speaker 7 I think that he's

Speaker 7 a more intentional

Speaker 7 learner, maybe, in that regard. And I think

Speaker 7 he would be different.

Speaker 10 That's a cop-out. You're a media member.
Now you got to take a stand.

Speaker 7 You can't have no. But I don't really know.
I really don't know.

Speaker 10 But does he articulate the same sort of remorse about I wish I had enjoyed it more?

Speaker 7 Yes, absolutely. We talk about that all the time.
Like from our background to get to where we were

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 to not have an appreciation for that. We do appreciate, like, we, we will talk among ourselves.

Speaker 7 And I certainly have this feeling all the time of even now, even just sitting courtside broadcasting a game is like,

Speaker 7 how in the hell did I get here? Like, you know,

Speaker 7 I was a nondescript small college player. I'm coaching at Smoke.

Speaker 7 The hell, I'm coaching in the NBA. The moment where I really remember it.

Speaker 7 My first year as a head coach here,

Speaker 7 our seventh game of the year. And the reason I remember it was the seventh game is he took us to 0-7 at the start of my career.
We were in Houston. And

Speaker 7 I remember the moment of lining up for the national anthem and looking down and seeing him on the other end and thinking like,

Speaker 7 you got to be kidding me. And I, even at that point, even with the game coming up, I had to fight back.
the tears at that point of just thinking like this

Speaker 7 is amazing. I mean, I'd already had the tears when he first got named the head coach.
Um, his first home game, they beat the, uh, I think it was his first home game. I know it was his first home win.

Speaker 7 They beat Jordan's Bulls, and the crowd in Madison Square Garden was chanting his name. And I was watching on TV, and I got the tears then.
But to be in the same game with him.

Speaker 7 Now, I did think, though, he knew I was struggling. I'm starting my career at 0-6.

Speaker 7 He could have given us one. He could have given us one.

Speaker 7 If he really gave a crap, sit a couple guys out, get me my first win, and then go on about, I mean, he could have done that. He didn't.
So there are limits to his love for me.

Speaker 7 And I learned that at that moment.

Speaker 10 You guys didn't talk. I've read this before, that the only time that you didn't talk is when you were an assistant coach with Miami and he was the head coach of the Knicks.

Speaker 10 You went a period of time where the battles were so excruciating and the scars so deep and the competition so crazy that is that the only time in your life where you've had an extended period where you did not speak?

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And, you know, you remember those series and especially the one where, you know, everything happened with Alonzo.

Speaker 7 And, well, even before we had the fight where they had guys suspended for games, the only time we beat them in that rivalry because they didn't have guys for, you know, for game seven and the whole thing.

Speaker 7 I mean, it was just

Speaker 7 It was so fraught with emotion that it was just better because we're not going to see things the same way at that point. And to be honest, we still don't talk about

Speaker 7 any of those games.

Speaker 10 The heatkins stuff still hurt.

Speaker 7 No, we'll talk about it generally in terms of the respect we have for people on both sides.

Speaker 7 Like, you know, like when I saw Spreewell the other day and I know how much he meant to Jeff and the whole thing.

Speaker 7 And then Jeff would obviously, when Tim Hardaway was working for me, he'd see Tim all the time. I mean, there's great respect.

Speaker 7 And so we would talk about that, but never getting back into the specifics of games and the whole thing.

Speaker 10 Thank you for always being a friend to me, to the show, to all of the people here, to our listeners. They have developed a relationship with you of admiration and respect.

Speaker 10 So thank you for being who you are around us, with us, and for us.

Speaker 7 Thank you. And thank you for your friendship.

Speaker 7 And I said to you before, you know, walking in, I haven't been in these studios and walking in and seeing this and my admiration for you and what you've done for so many other people where you could have relaxed, taken your money, either been in retirement or just worked for somebody else and made a good living.

Speaker 7 And I know you and I know part of why you did this.

Speaker 7 It wasn't a ego trip for you to have this company. You did this to help other people, the people who work for you in here, the people you've put on the air and put in podcasts.

Speaker 7 And I know you take great pride in that. And as a friend of yours, it's something that I really appreciate about you.

Speaker 7 You've developed those relationships because you care about the people around you, me included. I mean, you know, I mean,

Speaker 7 you put me on the air the first year I was out of coaching. And I think that got other people interested in me.

Speaker 7 Like you've, you've done that for people consistently when you could have made it a lot easier on yourself and just been about you. And so I'll always appreciate that.

Speaker 10 I do love you, buddy. I will say it again.

Speaker 3 I love you too.

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Speaker 10 Welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm super excited about this one for a number of different reasons.
First of all, Legend of Legend has come across the street.

Speaker 10 Finally, it took you many, many years of negotiations.

Speaker 10 You have walked across the street and the godfather comes over to studios. He helped build, okay?

Speaker 10 Me and my dad built a business near his business and he trusted me with his story and he was always there to help me in a number of different times over the last 30 years for reasons I don't totally understand.

Speaker 10 Perhaps he'll explain them to me. But he built dynastic basketball radioactive things in three different cities, the biggest cities,

Speaker 10 Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. And then he comes down here and he makes Miami matter.
He is basically...

Speaker 10 topped Don Shula as the greatest sports coaching leadership icon we've ever had in this city.

Speaker 10 And for 25 years, you're the only reason that Miami basketball has been what it is in our city, representing excellence in our city. So thank you, Pat Riley, for making the time.

Speaker 10 And thank you throughout my career for helping me any number of times and ways.

Speaker 7 And I will say, in another way.

Speaker 10 Whenever I had some major life decisions to make around life and death stuff, I got the wisdom of songs, music, poetry, inspiration, history.

Speaker 10 Pat Riley has been a bit of a life coach in some of my more challenging moments, pushing me into the deep end.

Speaker 10 So, thank you for being here, and I'm just grateful in general for 30 years of being able to work near you. Coaching is different from being an executive.

Speaker 10 Like, you have changed, you have grown over the last 30, 40 years over who you've been as an executive. You brought all of that that you learned in Los Angeles and New York.

Speaker 10 You brought it to Miami, and you're still here fighting at 79 when it would be very easy to just go to Malibu and rest. You've earned rest.

Speaker 5 No, no.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 Jack McMahon, you know, Bill Sharman, Pete Newell, Jerry West, Dave Checkitz,

Speaker 5 you know, all the executives that I worked with, I learned a lot from them, especially Jerry, and, you know, working for him as a coach all those years in L.A. And so when I came to Miami, And Mickey

Speaker 5 said that he was going to hire, and he hired the president and head coach of the Miami Heat.

Speaker 5 I immediately turned all the executive stuff over to

Speaker 5 at that time, it was Dave Wohl, and it was Chris Wallace, and then Randy Funn came in, and Andy Ellisberg, and I coached. And I was never in the executive office of the basketball operation.

Speaker 5 I was done with the coaches, and at that time, it was Stan Van Gundy, Scotty Robertson, and Bob McAdoo, and me, and Ron Culp, and Jay Sable, and 12 players. That's all we had.
I kept that tight.

Speaker 5 That group was tight. And I kept

Speaker 5 sort of an insulated

Speaker 5 fabric around that group. And it was important to me.
So the executive part of it in building the franchise, I don't care who you are as an executive. I had the power.
I never used it.

Speaker 5 I didn't want to use it. But I had the power, basically.

Speaker 5 The players thought I had the power and I could coach. And that's the only thing that I could bring to this team is winning.
I mean, I have to take it from the practice court

Speaker 5 to the old arena, which I love playing that old arena.

Speaker 5 And as long as we were winning, the executive things would take care of themselves. Now, while I was doing that too on the side, I was getting tremendous support

Speaker 5 from the people that I delegated that stuff to at the time. Because I couldn't do both.
I was not an executive. I was a coach.
And I've learned how to become an executive, you know, better.

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 I've kept people together here. We have kept people together here for a long time.

Speaker 5 It's a great commercial running right now

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 5 it has sort of a religious connotation to it that and talking about

Speaker 5 teams can win but families win championships. And I believe that.

Speaker 5 You have to figure out a way where you can get everybody to buy in, not just what you're doing on the court, but to really be part of something themselves, where they have a good time, they win, we party, we have fun, we sing, we do videos,

Speaker 5 we do practical jokes, but that never gets away from when we hit the court, the sweat and the bodies are colliding, you know, and that's the way it is. But

Speaker 5 so for 30 years,

Speaker 5 I've had so many people that have helped me along the way and supported me because my mind was exactly where you said it would be. The heat became

Speaker 5 first.

Speaker 5 I love that first team. You know, Tim Hardaway, Dan Marley, Keith Askins, you know, Jamal Mashburn, you know, Alonzo Morning, P.J.
Brown. I love that team.

Speaker 10 I love that team. Another team that's a manifestation of your will.
Another, another.

Speaker 5 We just, we couldn't get a bounce here there. You know, I mean, that's what happened.

Speaker 5 And that was one of the most painful times for me at the beginning because I wanted to turn this franchise around so quickly.

Speaker 5 You did.

Speaker 10 You did. You turned it around, but not to your standard.
No, but you placed the ridiculous. You expected for some reason.
It's the standard you've set in Miami. It's not reasonable.

Speaker 10 The standard is the championship, is the games that you want to be playing.

Speaker 10 And so you getting to the first and second round with not being able to get Michael past Michael Jordan, this was great indignity to you to not be deep in the playoffs.

Speaker 5 Right, right. But there's certain levels of a success, I think,

Speaker 5 whether it's the first round, whether it's the second round, whether it's Eastern Conference finals or the finals. I mean, if you win it all, it is very, very hard.

Speaker 5 That's a hard trip for a whole season for any team. And

Speaker 5 so our level of success was very good based on what it was prior to our coming together here.

Speaker 5 But I wasn't satisfied because I knew we had a team that year, those years, that was a championship team. And so for whatever reason why we didn't get there,

Speaker 5 I took it very personal. And they became

Speaker 5 some of the darkest years for me at the end of the seasons.

Speaker 5 You know, after we had lost by a point here or a point there in the finals against New York, they were a great team, too, and a very competitive series, always going to the ultimate game and losing.

Speaker 5 And it's not fun. You know,

Speaker 5 it just takes you to a place of darkness. And so when I talked about starvation, you know, with the Lakers, I was starving for an opportunity to do something to find another path.

Speaker 5 And this was another form of

Speaker 5 starving to take this franchise. That I'm not saying that it was inept.
It was not inept. It just was the team that didn't get anywhere.
And so

Speaker 5 I felt very

Speaker 5 bad about those endings.

Speaker 5 But if you look back on them, they were the things that started the fan base here in Miami.

Speaker 10 Oh, but you have talked so eloquently about this over the years.

Speaker 10 I remember during all of these games, it's some of the best writing that I did was you allowing me access around you to some of these feelings where you're saying game seven is the greatest way to live.

Speaker 10 What happens at the end? They're not going to hang you by the thumbs in the middle of town square.

Speaker 10 It's a higher form of living.

Speaker 10 And you have

Speaker 10 let me into some of these dark places because I remember you volunteered to me. And I don't know why you did this.
I still don't know to this day.

Speaker 10 You volunteered the story outside the locker room. You were broken.

Speaker 10 At the time, you were still smoking cigarettes. Only when stressed.
Only when stressed. And that Nick stuff was stressful.
All that shit was stressful. It looked stressful from where I was standing.

Speaker 10 And you volunteered the story of breaking down, sobbing at your desk, and Alonzo Morning coming in in uniform and standing over you and tell you to do your fucking job.

Speaker 10 I never understood why you volunteered that so.

Speaker 5 I don't know either. I mean the first person who saw me walk out of the locker room was Tim Donovan.
He's always standing right there by the stairwell.

Speaker 5 This is American Airlines Arena and we had just lost the first year the arena opened and we had lost in the seventh game by a point and

Speaker 5 And it was the first time that

Speaker 5 I really

Speaker 5 couldn't talk to my players. You know, I mean, for for a while,

Speaker 5 I needed a little time. And so I went into my office.
I don't believe in post-game meetings with your coaches like immediately, you know, because I got to take care of myself.

Speaker 5 And so the other coaches went to the video room. We had desks in there and they waited.
And

Speaker 5 I just...

Speaker 5 I was in that office and it all just came down.

Speaker 5 I don't know. It could have been

Speaker 5 everything culminating from

Speaker 5 when I was raised with my father or what went on in L.A. or at the end, what went on at the end in New York.

Speaker 5 And here I am again losing, failing.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I was overwhelmed. So yeah, I just, I cracked at that time.
And I do, I forgot I lost track of time.

Speaker 5 But the tears felt good. They felt great.
I just let them go.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 then I felt his presence of Zoe. You know, he was he opened the door and Zoe, you know,

Speaker 5 sculpted, you know, he was in his basketball shorts and he was standing there like this and he's gone.

Speaker 5 And I'll never forget it. He said, coach, I know you're feeling low.

Speaker 5 He said, but you got to come back in here and you got to finish the season. And

Speaker 5 he just filled me up.

Speaker 5 He said, I know, and I can relate to how low you are. He just filled me up.
I walked in and

Speaker 5 they were all in that locker room.

Speaker 5 A bunch of gladiators, you know,

Speaker 5 half naked, you know, some still in their uniforms and just sitting there.

Speaker 5 And I'll never forget when I walked in,

Speaker 5 they straightened up in their chairs. You know, they just sort of straightened up for a minute for the coach.

Speaker 5 you know that made me even feel good or better you know i mean i mean that made me feel better because

Speaker 5 they knew how hard I took it. And it was my job to make sure I could give them some solace in this moment because we had been through this like three years now.

Speaker 10 Everyone knew the team was going to be broken up after that. Everyone knew they'd given you everything that they had.

Speaker 10 They lost as a one-seat to an eight-seat on a bounce. And so it becomes a failure at the end.
They're broken in that locker room.

Speaker 10 When you're saying it's your darkest, you're going out there and you've got to summon something for them now.

Speaker 5 But that's where I think a lot of people miss

Speaker 5 what coaches do and what they have to do

Speaker 5 prior to games and post-games.

Speaker 5 There are those moments that are definitely seminal moments that you'll take with you for the rest of your life. You'll never forget that time.
But you also

Speaker 5 talk about the adversity of the moment.

Speaker 5 And I've talked about this all the time, and it's somebody else's writing that in my readings when I was younger as a coach, that in every adversity

Speaker 5 we find and we must find the seed of equivalent benefit.

Speaker 5 There has to be an equivalent benefit to this failure, to whatever it is and out of that seed you replant it, you replant it, you replant it and then it might grow a hundred feet in a year or whatever it is.

Speaker 5 And so you know failure is just as much a part of

Speaker 5 the NBA as winning is and probably it's more growth oriented than just winning games all the time. I mean that's how you grow.

Speaker 5 You built your business on failure too and you built your business on greatness and I think everybody who gets to where we have gotten to,

Speaker 5 we all have to appreciate those moments when it was dark and that it was low and

Speaker 5 that you never felt good about anything. So I have

Speaker 5 been born out of that. Even in the winning in LA,

Speaker 5 there were moments that were darker than

Speaker 5 Miami because the expectation was even higher and so here there was an expectation when I showed up and I felt like I failed you know those first six years and then we had to do a two-year rebuild and then we got Karan Butler and then we got Dwayne Wade and we got Lamar Odom and we got Eudonis Haslam walk through that door one day and we got Udonis Haslam and we had Eddie Jones and Brian Grant and and we put together now the next iteration of what the heat was going to look like.

Speaker 5 And then we got Shaquille, he got here, and we had to lose some players we loved,

Speaker 5 and then we won our championship. And

Speaker 5 you have no idea the relief,

Speaker 3 you know.

Speaker 5 Oh, man, you know, when we won that title, you know, the one suit, one shirt, one tie game, I call it. You know, it was the best feeling.
And we hadn't won.

Speaker 5 I hadn't won for 20 years in the championship. And so

Speaker 5 it was the best feeling for not only me, but for the city of Miami. It's almost like it was healing, you know.
And

Speaker 5 so

Speaker 10 this is why I say, though, that I have a special admiration for what it is that you've built here.

Speaker 10 By any standard, your first years here were successful, by a reasonable sports standard, trying to build a thing in Miami. But you had come from, I play in the finals every year.

Speaker 10 I play, I'm always in the Eastern Conference finals. I'm always in the Western Conference finals.

Speaker 10 All you've done is won at a higher level than what you were winning in Miami. Like anything.

Speaker 10 So your standard is unreasonable.

Speaker 5 Is it not yet? Maybe. But I don't look at it that way.

Speaker 10 But so you'd think you're failing for six years and you don't feel like you've succeeded until finally the one the one suit, one tie game, that was because you were just going back to Dallas and you didn't plan on playing any more than one game.

Speaker 10 You were up 3-2 in the final and you were saying we're going there to finish a series that people were expecting you to lose there.

Speaker 5 Right. I mean that was not a motivational ploy but that was definitely a message that I wanted to get to them.

Speaker 5 You know, just like when we were down 2-0,

Speaker 5 you know, I wrote on the board 6-20-06.

Speaker 5 And they all looked at it like, okay, 6-20-06, what is that? You know, and,

Speaker 5 you know, it definitely wasn't a biblical scripture or anything like that. But I I said that date is the first date that we can be world champions.
62006,

Speaker 5 we're going to be world champions. Get that in your mind.
And Gary Payton, I love him to death. I just saw him the other day.
He showed me his 15-strong card. You know, it's a credit card.

Speaker 5 It's not a credit card, but it's a real card, 15-strong, 250,000 cards we used to put in there. We used to believe that what we put into that pit, that little silver pit every night

Speaker 5 were more than cards. They had to put something personal in there, rosary beads, your mother's pictures, your family, whatever it is, something that counted was in there.

Speaker 10 That locker room was a bit religious. There's a picture of you with your arms extended that's a bit Messiah.

Speaker 10 Yeah,

Speaker 5 they got me at the right time when I was probably yelling and screaming.

Speaker 10 That was the start of the cult, or the cult and culture started around there, where you're all of a sudden now your championship, Riley, in Miami.

Speaker 5 Well, Peyton said to me, okay, coach, I see the date, but how are we going to do it? What are you going to do to help us get there? I mean, he laid it right on me.

Speaker 5 We're down 0-2, and we did not play well in Dallas.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I said, Gary, if you'll just follow me, we will get it done.

Speaker 5 I didn't say that with an arrogance or a hubris. It might sound like it.
I said, you got to follow me

Speaker 5 now from game to game because we did not execute worth a damn down there. We didn't do the things that we talked about doing after we beat Detroit in that glorious sixth game win here in Miami.

Speaker 5 And so, and for the next four games, then we just turned Dwayne loose,

Speaker 5 who at that time became the greatest player in the world during those two weeks. He was incredible, 35 a game, averaging 18, 19 free throws a game.
God bless you, Mark Hubin. God bless you.

Speaker 5 I know he was upset with the officiating, but Dwayne earned that.

Speaker 10 God bless you, Avery Johnson, because you never stopped doubling Shaq. Yeah.

Speaker 5 But I'm not going to second-guess anybody. I'm just going to say to myself that, you know, Gary, follow me.
We will get this done. On the back of Dwayne,

Speaker 5 on the great play of Shaquille and Alonso. And then the timeliness

Speaker 5 of

Speaker 5 Eudonis Haslam.

Speaker 5 making key plays in the fourth quarter of game six, James Posey making a three from the corner, And James Posey, who is not a great one-on-one player, getting caught with the ball with three seconds on the shot clock, had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 5 He put it on the floor and made a runner.

Speaker 5 And, you know, and then Gary Payton making a steal or Jay Will making one jumper or Antoine Walker going full court and laying it up and giving a little shimmy on the court. I remember all that stuff.

Speaker 5 And so when we finally won it in game six, it was just like an explosion of emotion. It was incredible.

Speaker 5 Everything came back, you know, from all the years, and it came back for a lot of the players, too.

Speaker 10 When I asked you about the cost of excellence, where do you have regret on what the cost was?

Speaker 5 I'm never going to apologize to my players for being tough.

Speaker 3 Never.

Speaker 5 That's who I was. That's how I was coached.
That's how I was raised.

Speaker 5 That was my approach. But I also had a tremendous compassion for him even when I was tough on him.
So

Speaker 5 if there is one regret that I might have,

Speaker 5 it would be a familiar regret of not being there

Speaker 5 really

Speaker 5 enough

Speaker 5 for my kids.

Speaker 5 The schedule just makes it almost impossible. I know it sounds like an excuse, but even

Speaker 5 long distance, there wasn't FaceTime back then.

Speaker 5 There wasn't any of these things where you could really contact them other than a call at night with Elizabeth, talk to Chris, put Elizabeth on for a minute, put James on for a minute.

Speaker 5 We're chasing our dreams out there still. And that to me, and also

Speaker 5 not being around, Chris as much as I, you know, at that time too in traveling.

Speaker 5 And that's why I don't travel now that much because

Speaker 5 I don't want to be away from her

Speaker 5 at this age.

Speaker 5 And he's got the trips. He's got the road trips, and he mixes up the road trips now by going seeing the Eagles or Springsteen or something.

Speaker 10 Oh, but Pat, it's not just the schedule, though. It was the schedule combined with the obsession.

Speaker 10 You were and you are a maniac.

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, I'm not a maniac, but I was definitely

Speaker 5 preoccupied.

Speaker 5 You can call it whatever you want, describe it.

Speaker 10 You just told me I couldn't call it maniac.

Speaker 7 It's obsessed.

Speaker 10 You were obsessed with work, with excellence, with not getting caught from behind.

Speaker 10 No, correct, but it pulls me away from some of the things that I love that you're now talking about when you're saying, I wish I could have been there, especially when you're saying I want to be there every minute now with Chris because you have a better appreciation for the stuff that actually matters the most.

Speaker 5 Matters the most, right? Yeah.

Speaker 5 So, you know, when you come to

Speaker 5 that

Speaker 5 thought process, I'll steal another quote: quote, don't know who the author was.

Speaker 5 A man or woman's, right, greatest fear is their fear of extinction.

Speaker 5 But what they should fear even more than that is to become extinct one day with insignificance.

Speaker 5 And what that always meant to me is that all I ever wanted

Speaker 5 to do in my life is something that mattered and counted. And I did that in sports.
I didn't do that as a husband and/or a father as much as I wish I could have. So

Speaker 5 that's something that we all talk about. When you talk to long-time life

Speaker 5 coaches,

Speaker 5 they would, at my age, all of them say the same thing. I wish I could have.

Speaker 5 You know, I'm, you know,

Speaker 5 Nick Sabin,

Speaker 5 you know,

Speaker 5 Dick Bennett,

Speaker 5 you know, I mean, these coaches that are getting out of college basketball that are great coaches.

Speaker 5 And they were asked questions why they're leaving at such an early age. And they're all talking about,

Speaker 5 I always felt that my job as a coach was to develop young men, was to help them grow and when they graduate from my university that they're ready and this NIL or this portal or all the things that are going on in college sports right now has driven some of the greatest coaches you know from what their passion was and what they thought they were doing

Speaker 10 out. But what you're talking about, Pat, correct me if I'm wrong.
You're not just talking about the schedule. When you say I wish I could

Speaker 10 What you're saying is the demands of the job are such that if you're going to be obsessed enough to be excellent, that combined with the schedule makes it almost fundamentally impossible for someone to be a present father and husband.

Speaker 10 Maybe, maybe some figure it out because they've got some magical stardust, but you thought you had to be working 20 hours a week, correct? Or 20 hours a day.

Speaker 10 We did.

Speaker 5 But Chris and I figured it out. I mean, we figured it out, and you understand it.
So, I mean, just the nature of the job for 57 years

Speaker 5 is that our life was

Speaker 5 from

Speaker 5 September until the end of the season, May, April, May, June.

Speaker 5 You're in this life and it could be a wonderful Orient Express ride or a train wreck. And you have to go through that.

Speaker 5 And your life is owned by a schedule, and you have to work everything around that schedule. That's all there is to it.
And so,

Speaker 5 you know, when you have that kind of schedule, and then your vacation time is simply from August to September 1st, and that's it every year.

Speaker 10 Thank you, buddy. Thank you for everything.