NBA Riley resigns as coach of Heat

He'll remain as team president, but Stan Van Gundy will coach the team.
MIAMI (AP) -- His hair is still slicked-back, although now tinged with gray. The "Showtime" style he used to win four championships with in the 1980s is a fading memory. His intensity on the sideline just wasn't the same.
Pat Riley resigned as coach of the Miami Heat on Friday, four days before the team he reloaded with young but largely unproven talent opens its season.
Riley will remain as team president, but he turned over the coaching responsibilities to Stan Van Gundy, his top assistant over the past eight years with the Heat.
"It's not about me today. It really isn't," Riley said. "It's about the Heat and all those season ticket-holders that have bought seats and sponsors that are starting to come out now because of Caron Butler, Dwyane Wade, Lamar Odom and the possibilities of those guys. It isn't because of me.
"It's time to do this."
Ranks second in wins
Riley, 58, ranks second in NBA history with 1,110 victories, and he led the Los Angeles Lakers to four championships in the 1980s. Riley won six division titles in his eight years in Miami, but only made the Eastern Conference finals once, losing to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls in 1997.
But the Heat missed the playoffs the past two years, finishing at the bottom of the Atlantic Division last season at 25-57 -- Riley's worst record in 21 years as an NBA head coach.
"This organization has changed dramatically over the eight years since I've been here," Riley said. "We had one great team that was a compelling, contending team that couldn't get it done. The last three years have been patching and transitioning and getting to the point that we got to right now."
And that point is a promising one. The team is beneath the salary cap, has flexibility to possibly add big-ticket free agents after this season, and has players like Butler and Odom whom Riley believes are budding superstars and worthy candidates to serve as the franchise's cornerstones for the future.
Plus, Van Gundy -- the brother of Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy -- has long been ready to take over, Riley said. But the new Heat coach sounded humbled to follow his mentor.
"I'm not going to try to be Pat Riley," he said. "I don't think it's a difference in philosophy so much as we're just different people. I'm not getting into those comparisons. I'm certainly not looking to make a lot of Pat Riley comparisons here to begin with."
Players shocked
Players were shocked by Riley's announcement. So was Van Gundy, who now becomes part of just the second set of brothers to coach in the NBA; Herb and Larry Brown did so in the 1970s.
Van Gundy was a college head coach for eight seasons, three at Castleton State, four at UMass-Lowell and one at Wisconsin.
"I still at this point have not told my kids, my parents. I haven't told my brother, because I was still sort of half-expecting he would change his mind," Stan Van Gundy said. "He had mentioned it to me on Wednesday. I didn't even tell my wife."
Riley said he made the decision at 5 a.m. Wednesday after convincing himself that the rebuilding process was advanced enough for him to step aside. He told Van Gundy and owner Micky Arison later that morning, but did not reveal his decision to players until Friday morning.