Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The Los Angeles Lakers honored legendary coach Pat Riley, mastermind of the team’s 1980s “Showtime” era, with a statue outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. Riley, a Hall of Fame coach now serving as the Miami Heat’s team president, coached the Lakers from 1981 to 1990, taking them to the NBA Finals seven times and winning NBA titles in 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988.
Now, he’s immortalized outside the Lakers’ arena in downtown Los Angeles, a bronze likeness of Riley — wearing one of his favorite Armani suits and with one fist raised — ranged alongside statues of Lakers greats Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Jerry West, Magic Johnson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as well as beloved broadcaster Chick Hearn.
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“I don’t know how I got here, but I got here and now there’s a statue out there,” Riley, 80, said. “I’m so grateful to be honored and to be with those who are the giants that I jumped up on their shoulders and they carried me.”
As head coach in Los Angeles, Riley won 533 games, his winning percentage of 73.3 leading all Lakers coaches. He would go on to coach the Heat to an NBA title, but he cemented his NBA reputation as the architect of the “Showtime” Lakers — whose high-octane offense revolutionized the NBA and made the franchise a cultural crossover phenomenon in Hollywood.
Actor Michael Douglas, a longtime Riley friend who was on hand on Sunday, says Riley’s trademark swept-back hairstyle inspired the look for his 1987 Oscar-winning role as banker Gordon Gekko in “Wall Street.”
Riley won a championship with the Lakers as a player in 1972 and went on to join Hearn as a Lakers broadcaster before becoming an assistant coach. He was promoted to head coach by team owner Jerry Buss in 1981. Buss’s daughter, current Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, called him “a guardian angel for this franchise” and “the epitome of an era.”
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