Fire Pat Riley!

Since winning the 2005 NBA Championship, the Miami Heat have compiled an abysmal 52-59 record.

Can you recall a championship team in recent memory who has had such a far fall from grace?

Perhaps the Chicago White Sox come to mind. They followed a 2005 World Series title with back to back disappearances from the playoffs include a dismal 2007 season.

However, the White Sox aren't led by a Hall of Famer like the Heat are.

Pat Riley boasts a lot of hardware. 5 NBA championship Rings as a head coach, 1 as an assistant, and 1 as a player. He's been NBA coach of the year 3 times. He has a .657 winning pct. in the regular season and a .606 in the playoffs.

Its impressive to say the least.

So then why are the Heat 8-21 this year? Why are they sitting on the bottom of the Eastern Conference with teams like the NY Knicks? Why did they get swept by the Bulls last year in the playoffs?

Riley took a team from former coach Stan Van Gundy and made them a champion. But he has taken that same team and made them losers.

Sometimes a coach can blame management for not getting the players they need to run their system. Its a mantra repeated in the NBA and NFL. So does Riley look at himself in the mirror and say, "I blame you". After all, the man has made every player personnel decision since the beginning of the 2003-2004 season.

Instead of making moves to surround Wade and Shaq with shooters, Riley has surrounded them with scorers. Guys who need to dominate the ball to be effective(i.e. Ricky Davis, Jason Williams).

What good is drawing a double team if guys cant hit an open shot? Their offensive rankings are truly awful

24th in ppg
27th in 3pt%

The only reason their overall shooting percentage is not worse is because Dwayne Wade puts up almost a quarter of their shots by himself.

They only have one guy who even threatens 40% from 3 pt land(Chris Quinn) and he doesnt even play a lot.

They have 3 guys who play significant minutes that cant even shoot 43% from the field(Williams, Davis, Cook).

Its embarrassing.

Riley has always preached sound defense and grind it out basketball to win games. However, he was most effective when he had the showtime Lakers who continually pushed the ball off missed shots. The 1990s were dreadful for Riley. His teams continually grinded it out in the regular season but failed in the playoffs. His post-Laker coaching career is riddled with 1st and 2nd round playoff losses.

As coach of the Heat he has been eliminated 5 times in the first round in a 10 year period.

You could go as far to say that Riley's system has only produced 1 NBA championship in a year where he assumed coaching responsibilities 20 games into the season.

1 championship where he didnt legitimately have 2 of the top 5 players of all-time.

Think about that.

Its time for Pat Riley to ride off into the sunset and consider himself lucky. Lucky that he "fell" into a championship in 2005 and lucky that he rode Magic and Kareem's coattails in the 80s.