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MIAMI – With the Miami Heat entering a crucial offseason as the team has a chance to once again go hunting for another alpha star to contend, president Pat Riley spoke in his end-of-season press conference on Friday about possible changes. As the Heat have been rumored to go after Kevin Durant among a myriad of other stars in the NBA, Riley spoke about the one possibility that likely won't happen.
Miami ended this past season on a dreadful note, not only getting swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, but Games 3 and 4 had the team losing on their home floor by 37 and 51 points, respectively. If there's one thing the organization probably won't do, it's “run it back,” as Riley explained.
“RIB. Run it back. We're not going to do that, or we're going to try to stay away from that,” Riley said. “We probably won't run it back. But it doesn't mean that, you know, I mean players aren't just going to show up. I mean, you got to make deals. You have to look at the board. You got to try to do something that's going to benefit something with your team, then your two key guys, if they're your key guys, and I think they are, plus a lot of other players. So I think we're probably in as good a situation as we could have ever been, from a draft pick, young player, favorable contract situation in a long time.”
Pat Riley says that the Heat won’t run it back. #HeatNation
“RIB. Run it back. We're probably not going to do that…Players aren't just going to show up. You have to make deals.” pic.twitter.com/EIqmpE1C6U
— Zachary Weinberger (@ZachWeinberger) May 9, 2025
Riley has said in the past that the team will be “retooling” instead of rebuilding, as the president is behind having Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo leading the way for the foreseeable future.
Heat's Pat Riley on needing change after “humbling” playoff losses
It seemed that change was inevitable, with even Heat captain Bam Adebayo hinting at it after the aforementioned Game 4 blowout defeat, where he mentioned Riley. There's no doubt that the team was impacted by the drama with Jimmy Butler, but after the way the season ended, any team would look itself in the mirror and ask how it can improve.
For Riley, the back-to-back “humbling” losses against the Cavs in the postseason could have been a hard reminder, as the legendary basketball figure said that “there's no doubt there has to be some change.”
“I think we do have to make changes. There's no doubt there has to be some change. And so until you change the way you go about doing the things that you do to win, if you don't win, you have to go about making changes to make sure that you can win. I don't know if that makes sense to you or not, but change is the highest form of sanity. It's in the present moment right now.”
“We know what we have to do, we know what we just experienced, we were not that team in games three and four. We were not that team. The score said differently…I think those two losses are humbling, and they might have put the final nail in thinking that we have to tear everything apart and rebuild. We've never done that.”
Pat Riley says the team “has to make changes” coming off the season and sweep to Cleveland. Says the two last losses were “humbling.” #HeatNation pic.twitter.com/UvpIVYTkFD
— Zachary Weinberger (@ZachWeinberger) May 9, 2025
Whether it be Durant or other marginal improvements, the Heat look to improve after finishing 10th in the Eastern Conference with a 37-45 record.
