Pat Riley
The Winner Within
Pat Riley is one of the most celebrated basketball coaches in the world, as well as the most successful.
Riley, who brought Showtime and four championships to the Los Angeles Lakers and made the Knicks a winner and a hot ticket at Madison Square Garden in New York, has worked his magic in Miami as well, inheriting a losing team and guiding it to a division title in just two years.
In nine seasons as the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Riley took his club to the NBA Finals seven times and came away with four championships, including back-to-back titles in 1987 and 1988-something the NBA hadn't seen in two decades. No NBA coach ever won 500 games more quickly. He left the Lakers with a regular-season record of 533-194 and a regular-season winning percentage of .733. In the playoffs, he led the Lakers to a 102-47 record and a .685 winning percentage. Both marks were NBA records at the time.