With his unique style and attitude, Pat Riley changed the game

Pat Riley's style often made him as popular as the players he was coaching. Bob Rosato/SI Steve Aschburner's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Steve. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

The NBA's modern era, in terms of rules, scores and statistics, began with the advent of the 24-second clock for the 1954-55 season. Its unofficial pullback from the brink -- of irrelevancy, of bankruptcy -- started in 1979 when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered the troubled, tape-delayed league. Then there are those players, owners, fans and sponsors who still mark NBA time from that day in June 1984 when the Chicago Bulls drafted Michael Jordan.

As far as coaches, though, the NBA's sideline history can be defined -- B.C. vs. A.D. style -- by everyone and everything before Pat Riley took over on the Los Angeles Lakers' bench on Nov. 19, 1981, and everyone and everything since. He was that game-changing, to a game once removed from the 10 guys on the court.

Think back to so many of the men who held those jobs, pre-Riley: Straight out of Central Casting, guys with crew cuts or already balding, shuffling around in baggy suits or, at practice, in polyester shorts with whistles surgically attached to their lips. Red Auerbach, Alex Hannum, Red Holzman, Larry Costello, Bill Fitch, dozens more, all old school. As in uncool.

Oh, there always were a few eccentrics and a fair number of former players, most of them limping, lumpy or both, hanging around for a paycheck or maybe as closet martinets themselves. Style? Well, double-knits and leisure suits were the rage for a while in the '70s, when Portland's Jack Ramsay worked all colors of the Sansabelt rainbow. The ABA was full-blown bizarro world, with a guy like Larry Brown alternating bowties and overalls. But even then, most folks knew there was a distinction to be made between clownish and cool.

Riley was the one who nailed it. Defined a style. Set a trend. And showed us all that coaches could be stars in the NBA, too, beyond barking orders back in the gym or dissecting performances in the film room. Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade was born two months after Riley replaced Paul Westhead as Lakers coach but learned quickly as he grew up, noticing the increasing number of sideline camera shots that invariably found Riley coiffed, smooth, cool. "He kind of changed the game of coaching, with his smoothness, especially when he was younger, with all his Armani suits,'' Wade recently told south Florida reporters. "He made it cool to be a coach."

It's not for nothing that actors Michael Douglas and wife Catherine Zeta-Jones were on the Riley guest list for the legendary coach's National Basketball Hall of Fame induction Friday night in Springfield, Mass. Douglas once played a screen character, corporate shark Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, who seemed modeled on Riley's style, from the slicked-back hair to his expensive and perfectly accessorized men's wear. Another actor, Kurt Russell, was even more frontal a year later, lifting Riley's "relaxed GQ" look for his slick lieutenant Nick Frescia in Tequila Sunrise.

"I felt that Pat Riley's look was right for this film because he was arrogantly confident but not offensive," Russell said at the time. "It's very tough to do that." So tough, in fact, that Robert Towne, the film's director and screenwriter, initially had wanted to cast Riley himself in the part.

Was there ever a better fit, as if tailored by a Beverly Hills haberdasher, between city, team and coach than Los Angeles, the "Showtime" Lakers and Riley? OK, maybe Chicago, the NFL Bears and Mike Ditka -- but you get the point. Had Riley been single rather than happily married to Chris -- and had Jeannie Buss not been a mere teenager during his coaching run there -- he might have been the head coach who dated the owner's daughter.

Riley looked the part, presided over a playground-yet-acceptable style of basketball and somehow was able to manage both ends of his roster, from measuring up to veteran Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's lofty expectations (Riley was only two years older, a former foe and teammate of Abdul-Jabbar) to connecting with Magic Johnson's innate leadership and old soul. After winning one championship ring as Lakers role player and another as an assistant to Jack McKinney, Riley helped the franchise take four more in seven years.

As it was, when Riley talked, other aspiring coaches listened. What he wore, how much he got paid and yes, how often his teams, they noticed all of that too. "The challenge was always to climb up to that niche that Pat established as coach in the NBA," Phil Jackson told the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon back in 2003. "He established it in many ways: style, salary, winning, the way his teams carried themselves. He was quite an inspiration as a coach."

That was part of Riley's cool, too, to never let them see him sweat. Because sweat he surely did, as obsessively and as driven by fear as any of his peers or predecessors. From tipoff through the final horn, the coach of the Lakers, the Knicks and the Heat might have been Ray-Bans personified, but up until and immediately after those moments, the "Winner Within" was a lot like every other basketball coach. Often more so.

Some coaches might seem like the last guys you'd want to play for -- say, San Antonio's Greg Popovich -- until you learn more about them and what they're like away from those anguished, red-faced 48 minutes. With Riley, it went the other way: Players wanted to play for him, wanted the winning, wanted the cool -- heck, they wanted to dress when they weren't working the way Riley dressed when he was. Then they'd get halfway through one of his killer practices, hear him spout something about Sun-Tzu and the art of war and realize that no one was going to outwork Riley. Or, by extension, them.

"People think I'm aloof or I'm arrogant, and I have a sense of that," Riley said as the Hall of Fame induction approached. "The fresh white shirt, tie, Armani suits, the image, the hair. That was the mantra, 'Look fresh as a daisy,' even though there were times after losses I felt like I wanted to die."

At age 63, after 1,210 victories and especially 694 defeats, Riley has felt that way a lot, and possibly for the last time. He is the Heat's president now, having stepped back from coaching for the second time in five years. He has taken hits along the way, from his shift to a bruising, less entertaining style of play with the Knicks to his hasty and unseemly departure from New York in 1995, from his grab at Stan Van Gundy's job 21 games into the 2005-06 season to his abrupt disinterest late last season. It wasn't quality but the quantity that finally caught up to Riley, later at least than it catches up to most.

Discussing the personal attributes that got him to Doc Naismith's Hall in Springfield, Riley said: "I 'd certainly say it's my leadership, the confidence to stand up every day and talk to a group of men ... talk to them after a win or loss. It's saying something every single day that is important, that will change their perspective. Also my competitiveness and character, even though sometimes the sharp edges get chipped.''

It's hard today to remember any of those days when Riley wasn't looking sharp.