Riley Hopes His Lakers Learned From Winning

It was hot at Cal Lutheran the other day. Blistering hot.

Pat Riley didn’t seem to notice. Heat is something he has learned to take quite well in his spectacular 5 1/2 years as coach of the Lakers.

You would think somebody who has produced three world championships and five trips to the NBA finals over that span would never know pressure.

Think again. Winning feeds upon itself. It is insatiable. You can never be too rich, too thin or too successful.

The pressure got to some in the Laker organization this past season. They said that this was the least enjoyable of the four titles won in the Magic Johnson era. The 1986-87 team was expected to emerge with another championship; anything less was unacceptable. It wasn’t fun anymore.

“If you want to have fun, go to the YMCA,” Riley said during a break from his two-week CLU basketball camp. “We want to win. We have set standards that we must live up to. I was a little tired, a little frenzied this year. But we had a lot of fun. We enjoyed our lives over the past eight months. We also worked hard. And the important thing was, we were able to have fun and keep our attitude.”

But what now? How do you fire that attitude up again a scant few months after reaching the top? What do you say to inspire athletes, some of whom need only one more championship ring to literally have a handful?

Riley has taken a unique approach. Certainly unique for him. Never arrogant, never boastful, he went out of his way on the day the Lakers won the title to guarantee that they will do it again next season.

Not hope for it. Not feel it. But guarantee it.

When he was out at Cal Lutheran last month for his basketball camp, Magic dismissed the remark as one made by a man who’d had “too much champagne.”

Not true, said Riley.

“I thought about it for a week before,” he said. “I thought about the pat answers coaches have given for 19 years about repeating; about how it was going to be tough, about how the other teams would all be playing hard, about how there was no way they could meet the challenge every night, about how they’d be complacent, about how there’d be injuries. For 19 years, coaches have talked themselves into losing, into mediocrity.

“I’ve seen it with players, too. A guy will play with bumps and bruises. Then the next year, when they’re champs, he’ll have the same type injury and think, well, maybe I’ll take a little time off.

“I thought, why fall prey to the same foolishness everyone else has? Why listen to the same excuses and believe it?”

The Boston Celtics were the last to repeat as NBA champs, winning the title in 1968 and again in 1969.

Riley is among those who have tried and failed. He was there as an assistant coach in 1981 when the Lakers, defending NBA champions, lost in a first-round, three-game series to the Houston Rockets.

“That was our first adversity,” Riley said. “We were not old enough as a team to deal with it. When we lost in ‘83, it was due to injuries. When we lost in ‘86, it was due to that insidious disease, complacency. You always learn more from your losses than from your wins. Every single year, there was a message in the loss. And every year, we bounced back. We’ve never found a message in winning.”

So Riley delivered his own with The Guarantee.

“That statement was really unlike me,” he said. “I don’t think I’m arrogant. I’ve always shown a lot of respect for the opposition. But I’m not worried about how other teams will react to that statement. I’m worried about our team.

“I’m not going to appeal to them by talking about another ring, another championship. That’s not enough. They’ve done all that. I’m challenging them to step further, to step up to another level. What’s wrong with wanting to be the greatest team of all time? They’ve experienced everything else. There’s nothing else to do. This is what’s left.”

And if they should win next season, where would that place the Lakers of the ‘80s?

“If we can win our fifth title in nine years, including back-to-back,” said Riley, picking his words carefully, “we have to be considered right up there with the best. If not the best.”

At that point, Riley excused himself. There was a more immediate challenge at hand. He had work to do with his camp youngsters. In all, 475 came through the two sessions, which concluded Friday.

“I enjoy working with them,” he said. “I used to prefer having the time off. I don’t need that anymore. I enjoy keeping busy.”

He stepped out of the shade of a tree into the bright sun. The heat felt good.