- 8 hours ago
Ahead of the Riley presser, there was a loud push from Heat fans on social media for local reporters to “hold Riley accountable.” What did they really mean by that?
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00:00Your conversation that you saw a lot of Heat fans upset
00:04with what Pat Riley was saying.
00:09What could Pat Riley have said yesterday
00:11within the parameters of what the rules allow?
00:14Couldn't have.
00:15Nothing.
00:16Like, I take all the blame and I stink.
00:20It's the same thing.
00:21Yes.
00:22You know, it's the same thing if you have someone come on the show
00:26when Mario Cristobal comes on the show and they've lost a game
00:29and then people text Joe, oh, you let him off easy.
00:32All they want is for you to yell at them.
00:36You think you don't know what you're doing.
00:39Like, you know, everybody's like, oh, you don't ask any of the tough questions.
00:43And it's like, no, you just want to yell at the guy
00:46because you're angry that they lost the game.
00:48People are angry that Pat Riley, the criticism has been
00:53that he's asleep at the wheel for a number of seasons now.
00:56He's telling you different.
00:58They don't want to hear different.
01:00They're tired of the play-in four seasons in a row.
01:03They're tired of the whiffing on Dame Lillard and Giannis and KD.
01:08Or when I say whiffing, it doesn't even mean that they tried.
01:11They may have decided against it.
01:14There was nothing, zero, that Pat Riley could have said
01:19that was going to change the minds of those
01:21who have already made up their minds about him.
01:23But what I'm confused about is, I see this a lot,
01:27especially from, like, Twitter accounts that I engage with, that I follow,
01:31who are tagging Barry Jackson and Anthony Chang and Ira,
01:36saying, you guys better hold them accountable tomorrow.
01:41And I'm sitting there saying, what do you want?
01:44Like, Ira always asks tough questions.
01:47It's why Heat players and Coach Spoh constantly tease him
01:52because they're just sick of the fact that when there's an issue
01:55or there's a questionable situation, he's there to ask it.
01:59It's...
02:00And they're like, hold them accountable.
02:02What do they want?
02:03People have an outsized idea of what the media can do.
02:07But I will tell you that we're the only people
02:09who get to talk to the people that they're frustrated with.
02:13And so they want us to do what they're doing
02:17on their text threads with their friends,
02:20which is yell and just say you stink.
02:23When they say, hold them accountable,
02:25it's not, hey, ask him a really tough question.
02:28It's tell him he stinks and he should retire and you're too old.
02:33I would say that, Hawk,
02:34because I've been critical of this roster the entire year.
02:37How do you form that question of Pat Riley
02:40that your roster is not as good as championship teams?
02:43He knows.
02:44He's sitting there giving his end-of-season press conference
02:47on April 28th while there's 12 teams still playing basketball.
02:52He spoke on Kalil Ware and Bam playing together, the big lineup.
02:55He spoke on everything.
02:56It's just not, they want Barry Jackson to cuss him out.
03:00Barry Jackson's not going to cuss him out.
03:01Think about all the times I have received tweets and DMs from people
03:06about how I'm the reason they kept Tua too long.
03:10Like, you know what I mean?
03:11But we have access to the teams and the personnel.
03:16And then the fans have access to us.
03:19And so we're getting, you know, it's like the game of telephone,
03:22but we're getting a lot of what they want to be saying.
03:25They just want it to be heard by a larger audience.
03:27I just see that a lot.
03:28Like, fans upset with the reporters in the Dolphins locker room
03:32for not going after Chris Greer, yelling at Joe Shad and Fioronez.
03:37And it's like, hey, those guys ask the right question.
03:40But they don't want the right questions asked.
03:42They want them to berate Chris Greer in the locker room and say,
03:48you stink at this.
03:49You're so bad.
03:51Admit it.
03:52Like, they want them to browbeat them.
03:54And it's like, that ain't happening.
03:56Barry Jackson wrote 18,000 articles on Bam and Kalil
04:00and asked Coach Spoh a lot of tough questions about that pairing
04:04throughout the entire course of the season.
04:06What, that's not good enough for anybody?
04:09Like, the idea that, because I see it so much,
04:12the idea that we're in the Heat's pockets is so effing stupid
04:19that I don't understand why it's like a common narrative on social media.
04:22It's so mind-numbingly dumb.
04:25Well, listen, if you look at social media a lot,
04:27that could be descriptive of just about anything that goes on there.
04:33It's mind-numbingly dumb.
04:35Then another person had tweeted at me, if I may, when I was saying,
04:42hey, nothing's going to satiate Heat fans and nothing that Pat Riley
04:47could say or Chris Greer could say would satisfy unless, you know,
04:51you're screaming at them.
04:52The guy says, if I may, in my opinion, it's not that we want you to yell
04:56at Greer that you stink, et cetera, I disagree.
04:59I personally get frustrated when you back a player, like, for example,
05:04to a Hawk, then over time, that opinion is clearly wrong,
05:08but there isn't an acknowledgement.
05:11And I tweeted him back.
05:13Nobody acknowledges their mistakes more than I do.
05:16We have a montage of Tate Martell.
05:19I spent the entirety of last season saying I was wrong about Tua.
05:25Why would I continue to back a take that is obviously wrong?
05:29And I said, what do you want me to do?
05:30Take out a billboard?
05:31Like, I have a four-hour radio show.
05:34But what it kind of says to me is that's what happens with the press conferences,
05:41say, with Pat Riley.
05:43People just decide before, after, and during, nobody asked the tough question.
05:49And then they go on social media and they go, nobody asked some tough questions
05:52when he did get asked tough questions.
05:55And so I think when people go, they hear me sing the praises of Tua,
06:00and I think it's a great draft pick, and I think he's worthy of the extension that he got.
06:05And then it pans out that he's not.
06:09They don't hear me do the mea culpa.
06:11They want me to self-flagellate and quit and go, hey, I don't know what I'm doing.
06:19I was wrong about Tua.
06:20I quit.
06:21You guys were right.
06:23I quit.
06:24Well, that's not going to happen.
06:25But if you listen to this show last season, you know I said 1,500 times I was wrong about
06:37Tua.
06:38And so I don't know what, like, so to say that there's no acknowledgement of being wrong,
06:42I think we do a better job than most of acknowledging when we're wrong.
06:47I can count way more times I've been wrong than I've been right in the entirety of the 20-plus
06:55years
06:55that I've been doing this.
06:56But I think I'm pretty honest about acknowledging when I am wrong.
07:01And to that point, well, first off, people want to doubt everything and be proven wrong with doubt.
07:09So if somebody gets like this guy, Proctor's 6'6", he's huge, he's nasty.
07:14I've watched some film, you know, some highlights of him.
07:16If he works out to be a six-time Pro Bowl lineman, nobody's going to argue with us saying, hey,
07:21I'm happy he's on the team.
07:22He's a big dude.
07:23I like big guys.
07:24If he flames out like Deion Jordan, man, yeah, I told y'all he was going to be bad.
07:29They're going to say everybody's going to be bad.
07:32And it's very easy to do that, by the way.
07:34Any pick, any trade, any anything, it's bad.
07:38This draft was bad.
07:39Like, it's so easy to do that because not everything's going to be good and then say, oh, I was
07:44right about this.
07:45Yeah.
07:45What was it, 13 picks this year?
07:48I promise you six or seven of them are not going to be NFL players, but I'm going to dwell
07:54on them and say, oh, all 13 are going to be bad.
07:56Oh, well, this Chris Johnson worked out.
07:59Yeah.
07:59But if you say he's bad from the beginning, now you just, you're going the opposite way that time.
08:03Well, I'd be like, man, I'm excited about the kid.
08:05Let me see if he can play.
08:06That's the, that's the first thing people do.
08:09And I asked it earlier, Hawk.
08:11I don't know what people want you to ask guys about their decisions they make.
08:17Chris Greer can't come out and say, yeah, I whiffed on that one.
08:20He's terrible.
08:21They can't, he can't say that.
08:23Pat Riley can't say, oh yeah, I shouldn't have drafted this guy.
08:27We're going to work on him.
08:28We're going to develop him.
08:29You know, the coach speak and the GM speak.
08:31And that's what the people just get to me where if you come at everything negative and get proven wrong,
08:36now you're surprised.
08:38But if you come at something positive and be proven right, oh, okay, well you got lucky.
08:43It's just, it's, I think it's a, it's a, a, a philosophy of human beings.
08:48It's some people default to being positive.
08:52And, uh, I I'm probably naive in a way you, you say it, but like, I'm probably naive in a
08:59way where I take people at their word.
09:01It's the argument we've had about Giannis.
09:04I take him at his word.
09:05I take people at their word until I've really been proven they haven't, but that's just my default in life.
09:11Some people default to the negative.
09:13They don't believe anybody.
09:15They think everyone stinks from the jump until they're proven wrong, you know?
09:20So it's just, it is, it's like, uh, it's a personality, uh, trait.
09:23But the thing with Pat Riley that frustrates me is I remember in 2018 before the Jimmy Butler trade, I
09:30remember we were having the same conversations about Pat Riley and about the heat front office.
09:36Oh, they gave Tyler Johnson this much money.
09:38They don't know what they're doing.
09:39The heat front office just had what was lucky because Dwayne Wade was, was acquiring talent.
09:45And then they gave James Johnson and Dion waiters money and everybody criticized the heat front office.
09:51But I don't remember anybody saying, Hey, you know what?
09:53Maybe we were wrong because they went to two NBA finals over the span of, of five years and three
09:59Eastern conference finals.
10:00Like, I don't remember anybody going back to those years and saying, Oh wow.
10:04Maybe being patient was the right course by the heat front office during that time.
10:09And maybe giving Dion waiters and James Johnson money wasn't the right decision, but it still didn't set the franchise
10:15back 15 years.
10:17Like they all imagined.
10:18And I'm not saying that where the heat are at right now is okay.
10:22I'm not saying that where the heat right now, that the fan base should be happy with them being in
10:26the middle.
10:26I realized that they shouldn't be in the middle, but to sit here today and pretend like it's the media's
10:34fault.
10:35It's Anthony Kang, Gary Jackson, Ira Winterman, Ethan Skolnick's fault.
10:40And Tim Reynolds, it's their fault for not holding Pat Riley accountable.
10:44That's what I take issue with.
10:45I just think it's laughable.
10:46Also the idea that Pat Riley doesn't know what he's doing anymore.
10:49Like he tried to get Damian Lillard.
10:51He failed because of a situation that was out of their control.
10:56Pretty much.
10:57Um, they didn't get Kevin Durant.
10:59Well, right now that's not looking like the worst decision in the world.
11:03Like looking like a great decision.
11:05What were there at right now is not okay.
11:07Also like that.
11:09That's true.
11:09Also can be true.
11:12Hey, maybe they went out and try to get Giannis onto the Kumpo, but they didn't want to send
11:18them all of their draft capital to get Giannis onto the Kumpo.
11:22I don't think that's the worst thing in the world either.
11:24Well, that one might be.
11:25And the idea that they're, that, that Pat Riley has to step aside today and totally
11:31change course with how they run the organization to me, because people on Twitter who play NBA
11:38two K think it's easy to, to draft guys over the span of five years.
11:43Um, like I, I just, I don't understand this logic that the fan base has kind of wrapped
11:49their head, but I will say their opinions are as valid as ours.
11:52That's fine.
11:53Like, like just to say, Oh, they play two K so they don't understand.
11:56I, what, what do I know?
11:58Like their opinions are as valid as ours.
12:00They are, but, but I'm not, I'm not blaming media members for not asking the right questions
12:06and, and accusing them of, of, of being paid by the Miami heat to, to, you know, run a narrative
12:14that Pat Riley is some God, like nobody's doing that.
12:18You just want to believe that that's what's happening because you're frustrated, but you
12:23don't think, you don't think Ira Winderman would rather be writing about this team in
12:26the playoffs.
12:27I mean, honestly, like you don't think, uh, the Miami Herald gets more clicks and views
12:33when this team is on a deep playoff run.
12:35I'm like, everybody wants them to be better.
12:37Everybody does.
12:40I didn't believe in Jimmy Butler.
12:41We were on the show together when they brought in Jimmy and you said, Jimmy was the one I
12:45laughed it off.
12:46Jimmy buckets.
12:47What kind of buckets are you talking about?
12:48Five gallon from Lowe's.
12:50I remember all the jokes I told about Jimmy Butler and then he went on to have 50 point
12:54games in the playoffs and beat teams.
12:56And I think we couldn't be, and that's what it is.
12:59Now we have to be honest on the other side where I'm critical of the roster and it's the
13:03roster great.
13:03No, but that's it.
13:05I think you hit on the heads a lot.
13:06The frustration, people just want to be angry at somebody.
13:10I'm angry at Pat.
13:11I'm angry at Spohr.
13:12I'm angry at how the hell you angry at Barry Jackson.
13:15What did Barry Jackson do to you?
13:16It's just people want to be mad at something when they've set a standard in South Florida
13:22of what the Miami heat is a championship organization.
13:25And we haven't won a championship in a while.
13:27Be angry at Pat Riley.
13:28Like, I think that's fair.
13:30Be angry with the situation.
13:31I'm not saying that that's not fair.
13:33A hundred percent.
13:34They're the 10th seed.
13:35They've been in the playing tournament four straight seasons.
13:36Like that is unacceptable based on the standards that they're telling us and have told us for
13:4120 years, 31 years at Pat Riley's been here.
13:44But also, it's not Barry Jackson's fault.
13:50Well, here's a text on the text line right now.
13:54The thing is, you guys don't know bleep.
13:57And people get mad that you don't know bleep and then don't admit it.
14:01And here's what I would say to you.
14:03If you're actively listening to people that you think don't know anything, that's on you.
14:10No, that's not.
14:12And by the way, I'm here to entertain you for four hours a day.
14:18I have made that clear from the jump.
14:20I am not here to teach you a bleeping thing because I don't give a crap to teach you anything.
14:28I want to make you laugh and I want to make the day go faster.
14:33So all of a sudden, six o'clock rolls around and you made it through another day and you had
14:38some fun.
14:38But honestly, if you listen to someone who you think doesn't know anything about what they're talking about, you're the
14:49dumbest person on the plane.
14:53Listen, I watch CNBC every morning and there are guys on CNBC who I don't think know what they're talking
15:01about.
15:01And guess what?
15:02When they come on, I don't listen to them.
15:05I don't say, here I am again and you don't know what you're talking about.
15:09But if I want to listen to something with someone who I think really knows what they're talking about, this
15:15would be like you pick and choose the podcast that you want to listen to.
15:20Why?
15:20It's the ones that entertain you and you think maybe that you're gaining something valuable, whether it's insight about behind
15:29the scenes at SNL or it's insight on politics because these people have ideas that you agree with.
15:35But if you're listening to something and you continue to say this person doesn't know anything, well, that's a bad
15:43choice that you're making.
15:45I can't change that.
15:47Like, if you don't think I know anything, that's fine.
15:49I would find a show that has someone that you think knows something.
15:55Weird people.
15:57Yeah, it's some different humans out there.
16:00Different humans.
16:00Could you imagine listening to a show going, these people don't know anything, and then they don't apologize for not
16:07knowing anything?
16:08So, I call one of our players Khaki Lackey Jr. for four years now.
16:14You expect me to know basketball that well?
16:16I mean, you know, listen, if you're not entertained by the show, that's a completely different thing.
16:21But it's very easy to correct that.
16:23If this show isn't entertaining to you, find something that is.
16:29Like, if you can't find something in 2026 that entertains you, you're not trying hard enough.
16:39And, you know, honestly, to back some of our friends and people in this market, Ira Winderman knows basketball.
16:46He knows.
16:48If you're following Ira Winderman, he's going to give you the facts about everything he's covered the heat for decades.
16:55He knows basketball.
16:57If you want to get a deep breakdown of the 2-3 zone, you might not want to listen to
17:02me.
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