Often referred to as “the Godfather“, Riley is regarded as one of the greatest NBA figures of all time both as a coach and executive. He has won five NBA championships as a head coach, four with the Los Angeles Lakers during their Showtime era in the 1980s and one with the Heat in 2006. Riley is a nine-time NBA champion across his tenures as a player (1972), assistant coach (1980), head coach (1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 2006), and executive (2012, 2013). He is the first North American sports figure to win a championship as a player, as an assistant coach, as a head coach, and as an executive. Since the start of his NBA career through 2023, Riley has reached 19 NBA finals across six different decades, making 25 percent of all NBA Finals as a player, coach, or executive. Riley was named NBA Coach of the Year three times (1989–90, 1992–93 and 1996–97, as head coach of the Lakers, New York Knicks and Heat, respectively). He was head coach of an NBA All-Star Game team nine times: eight times with the Western Conference team (1982, 1983, 1985–1990, all as head coach of the Lakers) and once with the Eastern team (1993, as head coach of the Knicks). In 1996, he was named one of the 10 Greatest Coaches in NBA history. In 2008, Riley was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach. He received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award from the NBA Coaches Association on June 20, 2012.
Early life
Riley was born in Rome, New York and raised in Schenectady. He is the son of Mary Rosalia (Balloga) and Leon Riley, who played 22 seasons of minor league baseball as an outfielder and first baseman, and appeared in four games for the 1944 Philadelphia Phillies. Riley played basketball for Linton High School in Schenectady under head coach Walt Przybylo and assistants Bill Rapavy and Ed Catino. Linton High School’s 74–68 victory over New York City’s Power Memorial on December 29, 1961, is remembered mostly for its two stars: Power Memorial’s Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Riley, who would go on to coach Abdul-Jabbar with the Los Angeles Lakers. In 1991, Riley called it “one of the greatest games in the history of Schenectady basketball.”
College career
Riley played college basketball for four seasons for the Kentucky Wildcats—one on the freshman team[10] and three on the varsity.[11] As a junior on the 1965–66 Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team, he was named First Team All-SEC, All-NCAA Tournament Team, NCAA Regional Player of the Year, SEC Player of the Year and AP Third Team All-American, leading the Wildcats to the 1966 NCAA title game. Coached by Adolph Rupp, UK lost to Texas Western (today’s UTEP), a game that was reenacted in the movie Glory Road. In his senior year, Riley made First Team All-SEC, becoming one of the few players in Kentucky basketball history to be named First Team All-SEC twice.
Professional career
Riley was selected by the San Diego Rockets as the seventh overall pick of the 1967 NBA draft. Despite the fact that he had not played college football, Riley was also drafted as a wide receiver by the Dallas Cowboys in the 11th round of the 1967 NFL/AFL draft. After playing three seasons with the Rockets, he was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1970 NBA expansion draft.
Los Angeles Lakers (1970–1975)
The Blazers traded Riley to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he played for five seasons. Riley played a significant role as a reserve on the Lakers’ 1972 NBA Championship team.
Phoenix Suns (1975–1976)
During the 1975–76 NBA season, Riley was traded to the Phoenix Suns. He retired in 1976, having averaged 7.4 points per game over his nine seasons in the league.
Coaching and executive career (1979–present)
Riley returned to the NBA in 1977 as a broadcaster for the Lakers. In November 1979, after the team’s head coach, Jack McKinney, was injured in a near-fatal bicycle accident, assistant coach Paul Westhead took over the team’s head coaching duties and hired Riley as an assistant coach. With rookie guard Magic Johnson and longtime star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in six games in the 1980 NBA Finals, giving Westhead and Riley championship rings in their first year coaching the team. However, the team lost in the playoffs the next year to the Moses Malone-led Houston Rockets.
Six games into the 1981–82 season, Magic Johnson said he wished to be traded because he was unhappy playing for Westhead. Shortly afterwards, Lakers’ owner Jerry Buss fired Westhead. At an ensuing press conference, with Jerry West at his side, Buss named West head coach. West, however, balked, and Buss awkwardly tried to name West as “offensive captain” and then named West and Riley as co-coaches. West made it clear during the press conference that he would only assist Riley, and that Riley was the head coach. Thereafter, Riley was the interim head coach, until his status became permanent.
Riley ushered in the Lakers’ “Showtime” era, along with superstar players Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar with their running game. Riley became a celebrity in his own right, a fashion icon for his Armani suits and slicked-back hair which complemented the team’s Hollywood image.
Besides using Lakers’ up-tempo style established by McKinney and Westhead, Riley was also innovative on defense; he was one of the first coaches to employ a 1-3-1 half-court trap to pick up the pace of the game. Though the Showtime Lakers were known for their offense, they won championships with their defense. In Michael Cooper, they had one of the top defensive guards in the game. The league-wide perception was that the Lakers played with finesse and were not physical enough to win in the playoffs. Riley’s mantra was “no rebounds, no rings”, reinforcing the need to fight for rebounds in order to win championships.
Riley led the Lakers to four consecutive NBA Finals appearances. His first title came in his first season, against the Philadelphia 76ers. Both teams returned to the Finals the next year, and this time Riley’s Lakers, hobbled by injuries to Norm Nixon, Bob McAdoo and rookie James Worthy, were swept by the 76ers. The Lakers lost in the Finals again in 1984, to the Boston Celtics in seven games. The Lakers earned Riley his second NBA title in 1985 in a rematch of the previous year, as the Lakers beat the Celtics in six games. The Lakers’ four-year Western Conference streak was broken the following year by the Houston Rockets.
In 1987, Riley coached a Lakers team that is considered one of the best teams of all time. With future Hall of Famers Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, plus Byron Scott, A.C. Green, Mychal Thompson, Kurt Rambis, and Cooper, the Lakers finished 65–17 in the regular season, third-best in team history. They met with similar success in the playoffs, dispatching the Celtics in six games to win Riley his third NBA title.
One of Riley’s most famous moments came when he guaranteed the crowd a repeat championship during the Lakers’ championship parade in downtown Los Angeles (he first made the guarantee during the post-victory locker room celebration). While the 1988 Lakers did not produce as many wins in the regular season as the 1987 Lakers, they still won the NBA title, becoming the first team in 19 years to repeat as champions. The Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons in seven games in the 1988 NBA Finals, making good on Riley’s promise. Riley’s titles with the Lakers make him one of six men to play for an NBA Championship team and later coach the same NBA team to a championship; the others are George Senesky, Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, K. C. Jones and Billy Cunningham.
Although Riley would offer no further guarantees, his Lakers embarked upon a quest to obtain a third consecutive championship in 1989. Having successfully claimed a repeat championship the year before, the term used for this new goal was a three-peat championship, and Riley, through his corporate entity, Riles & Co., trademarked the phrase three-peat. The Lakers won 57 games to lead the Western Conference, and swept the Western Conference bracket of the 1989 NBA playoffs (11–0).
