-Kareem
-Patrick
-Zo
-Shaq
As executive only:
-Bosh. Yeah, Chris was more the modern center-ish who could hit the corner three and was not the surly enforcer that Ewing or Mourning was but if Riley doesn't have Chris then in game six of the 2013 NBA Finals Miami has no one to snare the rebound and find Ray Allen in the corner for The Shot.
-Whiteside. Riley even got a true five for Spo. You laugh but all Hassan Whiteside did for Miami was lead the Association in rebounds one year and in blocks the next year. Erik wanted him to do just a little more, like pass out of the post. It was not an unreasonable ask but you know what, Hassan couldn’t. He was too slow in his movements, that’s the truth, he would get stripped of the ball. Hassan was a black hole in an offense, Spo’s possessionless, that put a premium on ball movement with the speed of lightening. Erik didn’t know what to do. Hassan’s minutes fluctuated wildly and unpredictably. It frustrated Hassan and Erik. So here’s my issue with great coaches like Pep Guardiola and Erik Spoelstra: today’s definition of “great coach” has changed from “He can take his’n and beat your’n and he can take your’n and beat his’n”, to “If he has the players to play his system he will beat your players playing your system.” So there’s no place for the NBA’s leading rebounder and shotblocker in Erik Spoelstra’s positionless basketball because such a player can’t pass out of the post and the lob pass for dunk to the center, what is a “center” again? My next game coaching in the NBA will be my first so a thousand apologies but I find that fucked up.
Riley was never sold on positionless. All those springy 6'7"-6'8" guys with long wingspans are fine everywhere on the floor except three feet from your basket. They can't protect the rim. Positionless basketball is similar to tiki-taka in short pants football. Pep wants even a goalkeeper to "play with his feet." Seems a little senseless to me but hey, like he's Pep, okay? But what do we have this season with Manchester City? What's the one weakness in that roster that, i.m.o. will cost them the Champions League? The lack of a "true 9", a striker, a striker and nothing else, a fucking goalscorer. Basketball is unique among the major team sports: height is built into the architecture of the game, the goal--none too large, either!--is 10 feet off the ground. It is such an advantage to have a big who can catch the ball over everybody's heads and outstretched arms and just lay it in, ah! A beanstalk is even more important defensively. The players have to throw the ball up, you see. If you have a guy who can swat that thang outta there on its upward arc...well, he's priceless. You can have positionless+one, a true big man. That's Riley's thinking. I can't refute Riley's thinking there. Spo can and did and Young Whiteside, ex-league leader in ‘bounds and blocks is getting carbuncles on his ass sitting on the bench in Excremento or Beijing or someplace.
But Spoelstra has really gotten away from positionless this season. Not only does he have a true center, Dedmon, but he's got a true point guard, a 6'0" guy. This is all Pat Riley's doing. He saw enough of that positionless bullshit (in his opinion). Riley gets the players for Spoelstra to coach. They each have a position, Riles is the acquisitionist, Spo is the coachist. Spo didn't even know the team had gotten Dwyane Wade back from Chicago or Cleveland or whereever he was for that one year. Spo was in Riles' office one day with somebody else, probably Andy Elisburg. Elisburg or whoever it was mentioned D-Wade in passing, "Well, Dwyane can play...blah blah blah". "What?!, Spo. "Oh, you didn't know. Yeah, we got Dwyane back.", Riles clued him in.
So this is Pat Riley's handpicked roster. Riley forced positions on Spo. "These are the players you will coach, Erik. Here, Kyle Lowry, all six feet zero of him, all yours. Here, Dewayne Dedmon, all seven feet zero of him, he's your cen-ter." Like Kyle there's only one position for D.D. to play. He's no Kareem or Patrick or Shaq or even Hassan, I don't think he's enough to win an NBA championship but he'll have to do. Kyle is 35 years old, maybe he's still got enough left but he'll have to do. How anybody can look at this roster and say--as plenty have!--"There's a championship roster!" is beyond me. But, I'm just an idiot blogger, I ain't no Pat Riley.
