One former NBA All-Star has some bold - and unconventional - advice for Miami Heat President Pat Riley.
The Miami Heat can deny it all they want but this is a franchise that will likely be headed into an offseason with some huge questions to answer about their future. There may not be any bigger than the ones surrounding team President Pat Riley. As he continues to climb in age, it's only natural to begin to question what his future is going to be with the Heat moving forward.
While he's historically been a staple for the Heat franchise, he's certainly struggled to accomplish team-building over the last few years of his career. With as much criticism as he's gotten most recently, former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas had one bit of unconventional advice for the Hall of Famer executive. Arenas believes that it's time for Riley to "fire himself" and to kick start a whole new rebuild in Miami, starting at the top with the front office.
What's next for the Miami Heat?
It's easy to kick an organization while they're down, especially one that rarely finds themselves in these types of situations like the Heat. However, there could also be some genuine concern about the Heat heading into the offseason. From top to bottom, there are very few parts of the organization that can look back at this season and consider it a success.
Even the great Erik Spoelstra has had a year to forget from a coaching standpoint. With the way things have quickly gotten out of hand over the last few months of the season, it's quite fair to ask, what's next? Because from the outside looking in, it's difficult to answer that question.
Not only do the Heat have some big roster issues, but the argument can also be made that they may too have some big-picture problems to sort out. If there was ever a time for some big changes to be made, this could be the offseason for them to happen. Whether that would or could theoretically include a changing of the guard up top remains to be seen.
But at 80 years old, it'd be shocking if the thought didn't at least come across his mind this offseason for Riley. The Heat will almost certainly need to go through some sort of rebuild if they're ever going to get back to the level of consistent success that they were at in their prime. Is that something Riley is willing to stick around for?
I'm never for forcing someone out of a job, and I'm not sure the Heat would do that, but Riley needs to think seriously about what he wants for his future. The storybook ending that Riley may be waiting for is unlikely to arrive at this point. It's a cruel reality that may finally be setting in. How that impacts Riley's future remains to be seen. Nevertheless, it's certainly something to keep a close eye on heading into the offseason.