Pat Riley Says Heat Are 'Close' to Building Championship Team

Miami Heat President Pat Riley believes his team is on the brink of building another championship contender.

"I want to build another championship team, and we're close," he said in a video released by the Heat on Wednesday. "Maybe we need another player, maybe we need less, I don't know. The point is that we're right there, and we're a contender. And I'm proud of it."

Riley knows something about championships.

He won a title in 1971-72 as a player on the Los Angeles Lakers, led the Purple and Gold to four championships as a coach, was the coach of the 2005-06 championship-winning Heat team and helped orchestrate Miami's back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013 from the front office.

Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel noted Riley was looking forward to the end of the season before it was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic, especially since he traded for Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill.

However, Riley remained optimistic with the group he has whenever play does return:

"For all intents and purposes, I'm so happy that we turned a lot of things around and we found the right players, the right mix of pick-and-roll players, guys that can post up, and really a couple of guys that can shoot the ball, really shoot the ball. And, so, we're happy for that. And we are very optimistic about moving forward in the future with these players."

The Heat were 41-24 before the season went on hold, which was good enough for the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference. They were still within striking distance of the third-seeded Boston Celtics at 2.5 games back.

Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo were both All-Stars as two-way forces who can impact the game in a number of ways, Goran Dragic and Iguodala are veteran leaders, and Kendrick Nunn, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro are all young contributors with plenty of upside.

The Heat may not be on the short list of championship contenders alongside the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers and L.A. Clippers, but Riley believes they aren't that far away with the current group.