One perspective: The Miami Heat is the defending Eastern Conference champion. Success.

Another perspective: The Heat collapsed in The Finals. Failure.

One perspective: The city of Miami cherishes this team. Love.

Another perspective: The rest of the world loathes this team. Hate.

One perspective: For nearly an entire season, LeBron James thrived amid scrutiny that would have driven a lesser man mad. Strength.

Another perspective: In The Finals, James imploded under pressure like a sinking submarine. Weakness.

One perspective: The lockout was pointless. Fact.

Another perspective: It was extremely necessary. Fiction.

One perspective: All of this is true.

Another perspective: What is truth? For most, truth is the absence of doubt.

For the Heat, it’s a matter of perspective. SO BEGINS YEAR 2 OF THE BIG 3.

This team has enough talent to win the NBA championship. That’s one way to look at it, and there’s no denying it. Just ask Las Vegas. Two-to-one favorites. Nearly unbeatable.

This team simply lacks the spiritual fortitude to persevere. That’s another way to refract light through the prism. Just ask the Dallas Mavericks. Three consecutive losses. Nearly unthinkable.

Pat Riley understands all of this. Perched high atop the pantheon of his sport, he has a view of every angle. His vantage point is a 360-degree panorama. The Heat’s president sees a team that can win it all. He also sees a team staring into the mirror, searching for itself.

“How we go about, and how Erik [Spoelstra] goes about, and how the players go about having a perspective on this season is probably going to be important to how they end it,” Riley said.

What is the proper perspective? That’s what this team must teach itself. Last year, after The Decision, after The Celebration, after James counted the championships he imagined in his dreams, all perspective was lost. And that was before the season even began.

The Heat was painted a villain of an epic tale it helped create. Darth Vader. The Dark Side. James, loved by all when he was in Cleveland, fueled by happiness, was suddenly cast a traitorous scoundrel. Benedict Arnold, his former team’s owner shouted. James listened. He heard it all; from everywhere. He accepted someone else’s perspective.

He played powerfully but with anger. The joy wasn’t gone, but it was hiding somewhere, tucked away in a shadowy cave, sealed off from the world by frustration. “What should I do?” he asked in a commercial. The world answered, “Be the bad guy.” And so he accepted the role.

James searched for answers during the lockout. Something was missing. Maybe it was his post game. He found Hakeem Olajuwon, who helped James find himself once again. Sure, he worked on his post game, but he also worked on something much more important: self discovery.

James called his time with the Hall of Famer “overwhelming” and said he went searching for answers “not knowing that the experience was going to be much better, much bigger than basketball.”

Now James says the old James is back. He’s ready for the hate fest. He’s impervious to the negativity. Boos from fans of opposing teams that once chiseled an emotionally hardened exterior will cascade off his shoulders.

“I’m just back to being myself,” James said. “I just wasn’t myself last year.”

Back from where? Back from darkness.

Who is LeBron James? A child at heart.

“I’m back to the childhood kid who loved the game of basketball — just playing it and not worrying about everything else,” James said. “Last year, I got caught up in everything that was going on. I’m back to just loving the game.”

Perspective. The Finals. The sinking submarine plummeting into the abyss of not knowing one’s self, of doing and not being.

“I didn’t play my game,” James said. “I didn’t make enough game-changing plays.”

Perspective. Truth. What is truth? The Finals.

“There’s no sense in putting extra pressure on yourself,” Riley said. “But when you get to the moment of truth, you’ve got to be relaxed. You don’t have to be living up to something you said.”

“ Not one, not two, not three, not four … ” Ultimately, James and his teammates will be judged — by themselves and everyone else — in the playoffs. The shortened training camp, the shortened season, all of it will be forgotten come late April.

The seeds of perspective already are being planted for the coming spring.

“We all know what this team is capable of doing,” Riley said. “We are contenders, I believe that, and that’s all we are.”

By Ethan J. Skolnick

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

MIAMI GARDENS — Pat Riley was angry for a while, “very angry” actually, not at anyone in particular, but simply at what was squandered. The gray in his lockout goatee is a giveaway that he’s been in the game plenty long, long enough to know the shame of letting a championship opportunity pass.

“You never know when you’ll get back there,” Riley said Tuesday.

Five months after the Mavericks celebrated on the Heat’s floor, he said “he’s over it” and promises that the Heat will “hit the ground running” whenever the league is no longer grounded.

But never has the uncertainty been this acute, with the NBA still idle as November ends and the ball now in the court of, well, the courts.

Last summer, Riley pulled off a free agent coup and positioned himself to properly punctuate his Hall of Fame career. Now he’s left to wait, hands tied, while other NBA parties change the rules in an effort to keep his Heat party on hold. He can’t even speak of the lockout, or plans beyond, without fear of a stiff fine.

If there’s any benefit to the impasse, it was evident Tuesday. It’s in his availability. Riley, 66, was often asked to speak to the Miami Touchdown Club while his friend, the late Jim Mandich, was in charge. He couldn’t make it fit. Yet one day after serving Thanksgiving meals to the needy at the Miami Rescue Mission in Overtown, and two weeks after giving out gold-plated coins to solders in Doral, the Heat’s president was able to trek to Sun Life Stadium.

“I haven’t been here for a while,” he said.

From his back pocket, he pulled a blue card, like those on which he scribbled practice notes as a coach. And after joking that Bonnie Mandich, Jim’s wife, had just found him in the ladies’ room, studying the speech, he launched into the first of many stories.

He remembered a recruiting trip with a friend to the University of Miami in 1963.

“We spent four weeks in South Florida,” Riley said. “And besides me trying to date (star) Rick Barry’s fiancée, (coach) Bruce Hale’s daughter, we had a wonderful time here. I spent most of my time up in Fort Lauderdale, at the Elbo Room.”

Then he explained how the boulevard in front of the stadium could have been named for him, rather than Dan Marino, if only he’d been a bit less stubborn.

Riley had played football in high school before concentrating on basketball at Kentucky, and was intriguing enough for the Dallas Cowboys to spend an 11th-round selection on him. Tom Landry, Tex Schramm and Gil Brandt all tried to persuade him to try football again and switch from quarterback to cornerback.

Riley argued against it. Landry looked at him and explained that Riley just didn’t understand. The Cowboys had Don Meredith and Craig Morton, with Roger Staubach in waiting: “So we don’t need any quarterbacks, OK?”

From there Tuesday, Riley’s 25-minute talk and subsequent Q&A mostly took a serious, instructive tone, focusing on the subjects of leadership and trust in coaching and mentoring, and on lessons learned from his relationships with all-time greats such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson and Jerry West.

Riley also shared tales from his Knicks days, including the time he showed players a video montage of Michael Jordan dunking on them, in an effort to inspire them to avoid getting posterized again. Instead, the video prompted Patrick Ewing and John Starks to jump up in glee, cheering Jordan’s greatness.

“That wasn’t the point I was trying to make,” Riley said.

Riley certainly made a salient point Tuesday when asked by moderator Joe Rose about Shaquille O’Neal’s personal and professional slams of him in a new book.

“It really has a lot to do with a person’s character,” Riley said. “You know, when you leave the sport, in some way, shape or form, or at least when I leave it, I hope I leave it with some dignity.

“And I don’t think he’s showing that right now to any of the people he’s disparaging in the book, including me, plus dozens of others. So I’m wishing him a happy Thanksgiving.

“If I saw Shaq walk in here today and he came up here, I’d give him a big hug. Because I know it was a lot better than what he was talking about, because we had some great times, with winning that championship.”

While Tuesday’s luncheon was a good time for all, it’s long past time for Riley to start chasing another.

MIAMI (WSVN) — The Miami Heat is showing its support for Habitat for Humanity by sending some major ambassadors from their team to help build a pair of homes in South Florida.

Miami Heat legend Alonzo Mourning and Heat president Pat Riley rolled up their sleeves to help build affordable homes for low income families. On Friday, crews focused on framing and window reinforcement on two Habitat homes located at 18th Avenue and Northwest 63rd Street. One of the homes belongs to Latoya. She said, “This is a wonderful experience, as far as you get to meet new people, you get to participate in the construction of your home, and it’s just an unexplainable feeling.”

Miami Heat president Pat Riley said he is no stranger to using his hands to build things. “I used to build tables, coffee tables, end tables,” he said. 

Both Mourning and Riley put in sweat equity for two families who have finally realized their dream of home ownership. “It’s a special moment, anytime we have the opportunity to help change someone else’s life for the better,” said Mourning, “and I’m a strong believer that the reason why God blesses us is to bless others.”

Both homes are expected to be completed within the next three months.

(Copyright 2011 by Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

DORAL, Fla. (AP)—Pat Riley spent part of his Veterans Day on the
basketball court.

Only problem was, the Miami Heat president wasn’t surrounded by Miami Heat
players.

So instead, Riley stood at midcourt, microphone in hand and reciting the
Pledge of Allegiance while military members and their families packed into
bleachers on either side of the gymnasium—the latest in an ongoing series of
tributes the Heat have held for service members and their families in recent
years.

“That’s why we’re here,” Riley told the crowd. “We’re here because of
what you do for us and the freedoms we have in this country and freedoms that
you’re allowing other people to have in other countries. I can’t wait `til the
day everybody comes back from Iraq and Afghanistan. I can’t wait for that day
that everybody’s back with their families and able to come to Heat games.”

That day may be next month. Or next year. Either way, the answer should be
coming soon. After two more days of talks in New York ended Thursday night, the
NBA proposed a deal that would allow for a 72-game season starting Dec. 15.
Players are expected to decide to take it or leave it by early next week.

“I’ve had enough,” Riley said of the waiting game that comes with the
lockout. “I’ve waited long enough. I think we all have.”

Since 2006, the Heat have honored military personnel in a number of ways,
whether it’s welcoming returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
at home games or last year’s move to hold training camp at a pair of U.S. Air
Force installations in Florida’s Panhandle. Riley indicated that may happen
again in the future. And the team’s community-relations side has tried to keep
the Heat brand visible in South Florida while the lockout continues.

Still, there are some days boredom is unavoidable. Riley claimed he’s become
the No. 1 gin rummy and backgammon player in the Heat offices during the
lockout, and professed that his new look—a silvery goatee—is as good as the
one team owner Micky Arison has had for years.

“The day that we start,” Riley said, “this thing is history.”

He hopes to be shaving soon enough. And when the time comes, he said Heat
coach Erik Spoelstra and the rest of the staff will be ready to start moving
very quickly to prepare for an abbreviated season.

“Right now we have one of the greatest bases of fans in the league and I
think they’re patiently waiting,” Riley said. “They’ve supported us. We’re
supporting them. And we just hope that we’re going to be able to deliver to them
the same thing we delivered last year, which is exciting basketball. We’ve got
some great, great, great talent, great players and we can’t wait to get it going
again.”

Follow Tim Reynolds on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

From his seat, whether at an exhibition game or the NBA finals,
Pat Riley has remained largely stoic this season. His expression
hardly changes, no matter the situation.

But now, the Miami Heat president confesses, the truth can come
out: It’s all a front.

“It’s a harrowing type of thing, when you truly care about
winning,” he said this week.

Fortunately for Riley, this Heat team has won more
regular-season and playoff games than any other in franchise
history, 71 and counting heading into Thursday night’s Game 2 of
the NBA finals against the Dallas Mavericks. The Heat held a 1-0
lead in the best-of-seven series, trying for their second title
after topping the Mavericks in six games in 2006.

Riley masterminded that run and has been the chief orchestrator
for everything since. Miami went from the top of the NBA to the
bottom two years later, winning only 15 games in an injury-plagued
2007-08 season that would be the Riley’s coaching finale.
Structuring contracts a certain way then allowed the Heat to spend
freely last summer when retaining Dwyane Wade and adding LeBron
James, Chris Bosh and others that have Riley on the cusp of another
title.

“I think a community develops a covenant with its team
throughout the course of a season, good or bad,” Riley said. “The
year that I won 15 games, as much as they disliked it, I really
believed they were there in support of the team and they hoped that
one day, that we knew enough about what we had to do to get to a
day like this today.”

Here they are. If the Heat pull this off, it would be Riley’s
eighth ring: He has five as a head coach, one as an assistant, one
as a player.

“I need a few of those,” James said last summer, when one key
detail of his recruiting meeting with Riley came out.

By now, it’s almost a part of Heat lore. Riley _ a winner of
1,210 regular-season games and a three-time NBA coach of the year _
took his rings, put them in a pouch and dropped the bag on a table
in front of James while trying to woo him to Miami. The message
couldn’t have been more simple, a Hall of Fame coach teasing a
future Hall of Fame player with the jewelry he covets most.

Call it a unique form of motivation, which is one of Riley’s
many calling cards.

“If you know Pat, you go into his office, he calls you in there,
and it’s like talking to the Godfather,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra
said. “The lights are always dim. He can see you, but you can’t
really see him.”

Spoelstra is the latest Riley pupil become an NBA coaching
success story, from the most modest of NBA beginnings, working in
the Heat video room in the mid-1990s and unsure if his boss knew
his name. Riley watched Spoelstra rise through the franchise as an
assistant, then picked him as his coaching successor in 2008.

In some ways, that’s been both a blessing and a curse. Even this
week, as the NBA finals were set to begin, Spoelstra was asked if
Riley was calling all the team’s shots. The topic comes up on a
fairly regular basis, and earlier this season it was widely
speculated Riley may have to return to the bench and save Miami
after the Heat got off to a 9-8 start.

On this point, the Heat are very clear: That was never, ever
going to happen.

“I use Pat as a resource as much as I possibly can,” Spoelstra
said. “I think all the other elements are the ones that I’m more
fascinated with. He’s a walking motivational leadership speaker,
and he can pontificate about so many other elements outside of X’s
and O’s. Those are usually our discussions, about how to motivate,
how to manage personalities, how to lead, these type of things that
usually cost people $50,000 to get that type of advice. I just have
to go down the hall and knock on the door.”

It’s believed Riley makes $50,000, or more, when he speaks to
corporations about how to succeed.

On that topic, he would seem to be a bit of an expert.

He’s written books on the subject, he still finds ways to relay
that knowledge to players and he oversees every element of the
basketball-operations side of the Heat, right down to which
motivational quotes will be etched on the walls leading from their
locker room. Even this week, when Riley appeared at an NBA Cares
event and touched the league’s championship trophy, a slew of Heat
players in attendance took immediate notice.

“Coach Riley is very inspirational,” Wade said. “He’s in the
background, but he’s around often and when he talks, you listen
because of his knowledge of the game. And also, he’s a leader. He’s
the leader of this organization and we respect him. I think he’s
done a great job of putting together a pretty good team and coming
in at the right times when he feels the need to be able to express
himself.”

Riley retired in name only. The only thing he really gave up is
patrolling the sideline on game nights.

He’s at just about every practice, usually flanked by team owner
Micky Arison and other team executives, sitting off to the side.
He’s known for sneaking up on players when they least expect it and
engaging them in conversations, just telling them what he sees on
the floor. And he keeps an extremely low profile now, trying to not
overshadow Spoelstra and the coaching staff. He rarely gives
interviews anymore.

Still, when he speaks, it resonates. Riley told fans last season
that the Heat were trying to put together “a dynasty,” and that
video on the team’s website sent season-ticket demand skyrocketing.
Then he did his part to back up that boast, landing the three
most-wanted free agents in last summer’s NBA player-movement
bonanza.

“Having him around is amazing,” James said. “To be able to go to
someone if need be, and it’s not always just about basketball, it’s
about anything. We’re blessed to have him around. This organization
is blessed to have him, period.”

___

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