Statue outside Lakers’ arena is another first for Pat Riley

The Lakers had defeated the hated Boston Celtics in the 1987 NBA Finals and there stood coach Pat Riley at the Forum in Inglewood with a microphone in his hands and joyous players behind him relishing the moment.

Riley then made a declaration.

“I’m guaranteeing everyone here next year we are going to win it again,” Riley said.

He quickly looked back at his shocked players.

Byron Scott said it was the kind of moment that showed why Riley is having his statue unveiled by the Lakers on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena, and on the day L.A. plays the rival Celtics, no less.

Riley won four championships and reached the Finals seven times during nine years coaching the franchise for which he once played.

Scott said Riley is deserving of being immortalized among the Lakers greats: Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor and Chick Hearn, all of whom have statues in their honor.

Showtime, Scott said, was as much about Riley as Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper and James Worthy.

It had been almost 20 years since the last team that won back-to-back championships, the 1968-69 Celtics, and yet there was the “calculating” Riley making his guarantee.

“We’re all sitting there at the Forum and he’s on the damn pedestal talking and he said, ‘I’m guaranteeing everyone here next year we are going to win it again.’ We were just like, ‘What did he just say? We’re still trying to enjoy this one,’” Scott recalled, laughing.

“He said it and he turned around real quick and kind of looked at us and we were all like, ‘Wait a minute. Did he just say we are going to win this s— again next year? We ain’t even celebrated this one.’ But what he did is subconsciously he got us thinking about that …

“We all started working out earlier than we normally do when we win a championship. I remember I went to the UCLA track and I saw Coop there. Magic there. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I ain’t never seen these brothers here this early.’ Then I thought, ‘I ain’t never come this early either.’ It was like I had to get ready.

“Like I said, he thought about that and was calculating about it and it was exactly what we needed. We needed that challenge and that’s why I think he’s one of the greatest coaches of all time. We were able to pull it off.”

Indeed, the Lakers defeated the Detroit Pistons in seven games the next season to win another ring.

Scott, who won three championships with the Lakers, said Riley could push them so hard because the coach “worked his ass off.”

“When we started flying in our own private plane, there were times when I would get up in the middle of the flight to go use the bathroom in the back and his light would be the only one on going through stuff,” Scott said. “And I remember that like it was yesterday. The man was just a tireless worker and his work ethic was unmatched as a coach. He was always prepared.”

Worthy said Riley demanded the best from his players because he demanded so much out of himself.

Riley won a championship as a bench player with the Lakers in 1972. But as coach he was the director of the Lakers’ championship runs in the ‘80s.

“He was real honest about what he saw. So, he was always good,” Worthy said. “He pushed you to the limit. He understood personalities and how far he could push certain people. You know how you wring that face towel up and hang it up? He would always take it down and he would get one more drop out of you. He was like, ‘Naw, there are a couple more drops in you. You didn’t squeeze tight enough. There is one more drop in there.’ He ended up getting it too.

“He kept us together with honesty and truth and hard work. There weren’t no days off. Wasn’t no load management. None of that. Every game I played with Pat Riley, win or lose, I was ready and prepared — without question.”

Lakers, from left, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott, Magic Johnson and coach Pat Riley during 1985 victory parade.

(Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images)

Mychal Thompson, who was acquired by the Lakers in 1987, spent seven seasons playing for the Portland Trail Blazers and coach Jack Ramsay.

Thompson quickly realized that playing for Riley alongside Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar required more than he had ever given.

“Riley’s demands were quite high,” said Thompson, who won two titles with the Lakers. “You couldn’t play for Pat Riley unless you are a true pro. There was no foolishness tolerated from him and, of course, Magic, his lieutenant. Obviously I played against them many years — and Jack Ramsay was a demanding coach too — but the Lakers under Riley was a whole different level. They expected to win championships and when you expect to win championships you can’t afford any slack-offs.”

How Riley became coach is the stuff of Lakers lore.

He was a commentator for the Lakers alongside the venerable Chick Hearn, doing what was then a simulcast of radio and television. When Lakers coach Jack McKinney was injured in a bicycle accident in November 1979, assistant coach Paul Westhead took over and hired Riley as an assistant. The Lakers went on to win the championship in 1980.

But six games into the 1981-82 season, Johnson expressed his desire to be traded because he was unhappy playing for Westhead. Lakers owner Jerry Buss fired Westhead and chose West, the team’s former coach who was working as a scout, to replace him.

Lakers coach Pat Riley takes a knee as he talks to his players on the bench, including James Worthy and Bob McAdoo, in 1983.

(Los Angeles Times)

But at the news conference for the announcement, West balked and said he was going to assist Riley, who was named the interim coach before it became permanent.

Thus began the rise of of Riley, who took Showtime to the highest heights during the ‘80s.

Jeanie Buss, Jerry’s daughter who remains the Lakers’ governor and minority owner, says this honor for Riley is well deserved.

“This will be a great way to celebrate one of the most important people in the history of the Lakers and of the NBA,” Buss told The Times. “As the stylish leader of the Showtime Lakers, Pat Riley became the epitome of an era. And I’m so glad that generations of Angelenos will be able to gather by his statue, to learn of his achievements and to understand his central role in the history of our city.”

When Worthy was drafted No. 1 overall by the Lakers in 1982, he recalled his first meeting with Riley. West picked up Worthy at the airport and the two drove to meet Riley for lunch.

“I had never met Pat Riley and he came in and I was like, ‘Man, is this Robert De Niro or this Pat Riley!’” Worthy said, laughing. “He had a cool, open-collared shirt on. He had long hair. I was like, ‘This man here, he is cool.’ But you also knew then from our conversations that he was a great coach and he expected the best out of you.”

The images of Riley standing on the sideline looking stylish in Armani suits, his slicked-back hair seemingly perfect, are ingrained in the minds of basketball fans.

It was a look of authority and self-assurance that even the Hollywood crowd that attended the games respected and admired.

“So, I’m just trying to figure out what Riles’ statue is going to look like,” Worthy said. “It’s got to be one of those sideline Armani suits with his hands on his sides or something. That’s the best one, man, and his neat hairdo, looking stylish. That’s got to be it.”