Pat Riley took his place among Lakers greats Sunday when his statue was unveiled at Star Plaza outside Crypto.com Arena, honoring his unexpected coaching career where he guided the team to four NBA championships.
Riley, a scrappy player on the Lakers’ legendary 1971-72 team that won the team’s first NBA championship in Los Angeles and authored a league-record 33-game winning streak, is better known as the coiffed, well-dressed coach of the 1980s “Showtime” teams.
“Significance doesn’t come from comfort, it comes from adversity, from discipline, from refusing to be ordinary,” Riley said. “One day we look back with the incredible pride and gratitude to have been part of something truly special. That statue right there is loaded up with all of us who took this magical journey.”
The nearly 8-foot-tall, 510-pound bronze statue designed by Rotblatt Amrany Studios is placed between the statues honoring Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
It depicts Riley standing on the sideline with his right fist high in the air calling out a play, decked out in a Giorgio Armani-tailored suit with a crocodile leather belt and his 1985 championship ring, the season the Lakers first defeated the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals after eight losses, including four in seven games.
Under Riley’s inscribed name, the base of the sculpture reads, “There will come a time when you are challenged, and when that time comes, you must plant your feet. You must stand firm. You must make a point. About who you are, what you do, and where you come from. Then that time comes, you do it.”
The sculpture base also includes acknowledgements and commemorates Riley’s career with notable accolades as a player, coach and executive, including 24 seasons as a coach and 1,381 regular-season and playoff wins, fifth all-time.
The right side features the New Testament verse Mark 3:25, “A house divided against itself will not stand,” a reference Riley used with his Lakers Showtime team.
Riley spent much of his speech honoring his former players, as well as longtime assistant coach Bill Bertka, who was in attendance.
“I needed the balance of his softness … when I became a little too intense,” he said.
The former coach closed with a message for Sunday’s players, including those on the 2025-26 Lakers.
“Whose footprints are you chasing today? Are they pushing you, stretching you, demanding more than you have, and more importantly, what footprints are you leaving?” he asked.
Johnson preceded Riley to the podium, and paid tribute to his former coach’s famously high standards.
“Mentally tough, physically tough, high basketball IQ, you have to have some grit and toughness, discipline. You have to be about winning. You have to love the game, (be) passionate about the game, or you couldn’t play for Pat Riley,” Johnson said.
“… Thank you for pushing me to another level.”
Team Governor Jeanie Buss called Riley “a guardian angel for this franchise, its employees and most important, its fans across the world.”
The 80-year-old Riley was also joined at Sunday’s unveiling by Abdul-Jabbar, former Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade and actor Michael Douglas, who confirmed that his famous Gordon Gekko character in the 1987 film “Wall Street” was partially inspired by Riley.
“I was with Pat and (Riley’s wife) Chris … we were riding in a convertible, and I was looking at Pat, and thought `his hair is not moving, and it’s a convertible,’ and I thought, `That’s the way I want to go,”’ Douglas said.
Shaquille O’Neal, who played for Riley when the Heat won the 2006 title, submitted a video message paying tribute to Riley.
Former Lakers Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon, A.C. Green, Kurt Rambis, Byron Scott, Bob McAdoo and James Worthy were in attendance, but did not speak at the ceremony.
The unveiling took place early Sunday afternoon, a few hours before the Lakers lost to the Celtics, 111-89, in their only regular-season appearance at Crypto.com Arena.
Riley’s coaching tenure was marked by the fierce rivalry between the Lakers and Boston, with the teams meeting in the NBA finals three times in the 1980s. The Lakers won two of those matchups, suffering a bitter seven-game defeat in 1984.
Riley was the Lakers’ coach from 1981-90. In addition to the four championships, he also guided the team to the NBA finals in 1983, 1984 and 1989.
He also coached the New York Knicks to the 1994 NBA finals, where they lost to the Houston Rockets in seven games.
Riley won a fifth NBA title as a coach in 2006 with the Miami Heat. Riley coached the Heat from 1995 to 2003, and again from 2005-08. He’s been the Heat’s president since 2008.
Riley’s coaching career began in 1979 after coach Jack McKinney was seriously injured in a bicycle crash. Paul Westhead, the Lakers’ lone assistant coach, became the interim coach and coached the team alone for nine games.
When it became increasingly apparent that McKinney was unlikely to return that season, Riley became the interim assistant coach in the midst of his third season as the analyst on the Lakers’ radio and television simulcasts, working alongside Chick Hearn.
(The Lakers currently have an associate head coach, five assistant coaches, an “assistant coach, player development,” and a player development coach.)
The Lakers won the NBA championship in 1980, but lost in a first-round series to the Houston Rockets the following season.
Using a new offense, the Lakers lost four of their first six games to begin the 1981-82 season, then won their next five games, all by four points or less.
Following the fifth victory, when Westhead delivered what the Los Angeles Times described as a “postgame lecture” to Johnson, he told reporters his differences with the coach were irreconcilable, he was not having fun and would ask owner Jerry Buss to trade him.
Westhead was fired the next day with Riley becoming his successor. Buss insisted Johnson’s comments had nothing to do with the decision and had decided to fire Westhead earlier.
“I didn’t think I was ready, but I knew I was ready,” Riley said Sunday. His only previous head coaching experience came with the Lakers’ summer league team.
Riley’s association with the Lakers began on Oct. 7, 1970, when they purchased his contract from the Portland Trail Blazers, who had selected him in an expansion draft nearly five months earlier.
The four-paragraph story on Riley’s acquisition ran on the seventh page of the Los Angeles Times sports section with the headline “Lakers Obtain Veteran Guard,” noting that the Lakers were “thin in the backcourt,’ with only three active guards.
Riley played five full seasons with the Lakers and two games of the 1975-76 season, averaging 7.8 points per game. He concluded his playing career in the 1975-76 season, with the Phoenix Suns.
“In 1981, my father made Pat the team’s head coach and Pat soon became the epitome of an era, the stylish leader of the all-conquering Showtime Lakers,” Jeanie Buss said Sunday.
“Now generations of Angelenos will be able to gather here to learn of his achievements and to understand his central role in the history of our team and our city.”