Cooper, a faded copy of the high flyer he’d once been, averaged twenty-three minutes per game and cursed Riley out beneath his breath. Scott, a stubbornly confident man, was shooting thirteen times per game—far too low for a player of his stature. Worthy was worn down by the negative vibes. Divac endured Johnson’s nonstop criticisms. In January, Cooper, Worthy and Johnson—the three captains—met with West to complain about Riley’s abusiveness and some of his on-court strategizing. There was, Johnson told the general manager, a gap in communication that needed to be resolved. Shortly thereafter, West held a team meeting for everyone to clear the air. He told the press it was a “small thing.” This was a lie.
Riley didn’t like what was he was seeing. He believed players were done listening to him and no longer sought out his approval. “He’d always say that,” said Bertka. “‘Bill, they’re tired of hearing what I have to say.’” Riley also seemed to cringe at the spoils of success lavished upon the franchise. Worthy spent $2.675 million on a gated mansion in Pacific Palisades. CBS hired a producer named Renée Valente to film a (painfully awful) made-for-TV movie, Laker Girls, starring Tina Yothers. Johnson agreed to a $1 million pay-per-view one-on-one game against Chicago’s Michael Jordan (it was canceled when the NBA refused to sanction the event). Divac drew interest from a surprising number of merchandisers. To a coach who bemoaned “peripheral distractions,” everything now seemed to be a peripheral distraction. Control was gone. There was even speculation that, come season’s end, NBC would make Riley an offer to jump to TV. “Guys tired of Pat,” said Vitti. “His style is such that you can get burned out on it. Because he keeps tightening that bolt tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter.”
Despite the turmoil, the Lakers wound up winning sixty-three games, the second most in Riley’s career. With four new expansion teams (Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, Orlando) having been added over two seasons, the NBA wasn’t quite as deep as it had been. Regardless, Los Angeles compiled the league’s best record, and the feeling of accomplishment after wrapping up the top seed was real. “You had to be proud,” said Divac. “You reached a goal—a very hard goal.”
Los Angeles faced the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, a matchup that lacked the luster of the Kareem-versus-Moses and Kareem-versus-Sampson days. Houston was a nondescript .500 team, and the series was taken by the Lakers in a benign four games.
Yet while even the most diligent of Showtime fans probably recall little of the action from a forgettable battle, John Black, the media relations head, will never forget what transpired shortly after the team checked into the Stouffer Renaissance Hotel on Monday, April 30, for the third game.
“Everybody was coming back from dinner, and the elevator door opens,” Black said. “It was Earvin, Cooper, Byron, Orlando Woolridge and one other guy. . . .”
Black looked over the crowded space and suggested he’d wait for the next ride. A long arm grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him inside. “John,” Johnson said, “we’re gonna fill you in.”
The men retreated to a suite, where the following hour was devoted to a verbal slaying of the prison guard known as Patrick James Riley. “They had a team meeting and they’re motherfucking him,” Black said. “Motherfucker this and motherfucker that and all these motherfuckers directed at Pat. I didn’t know it was to that extent. And I was like, ‘Holy fuck.’ It was all melting down.”
The Lakers were scheduled to play Phoenix in the next round, and nobody (literally, not a single newspaper prognosticator) predicted a Suns triumph. Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons’s team had been good enough to win fifty-four regular-season games, and the Kevin Johnson-Jeff Hornacek backcourt was one of the NBA’s elite. But Phoenix—despite starting some guy named Rambis at power forward—had lost three of four to Los Angeles in the regular season. Even after they shocked the Lakers in the opener with a 104–102 win at the Forum, few were anticipating much of a run. Los Angeles fought back to take Game 2, and order was rightly restored.
Or not.
The series shifted to Arizona, and the Suns grabbed Game 3 with an uncharacteristically simple 117–103 victory. If one were attending his first NBA game, he would have left convinced that Phoenix was the far superior team. Kevin Johnson repeatedly zipped through the lane, past Magic Johnson and Scott, to score 22, and Hornacek, the deadeye shooting guard, hit 10 of 16 for 29 points. The Suns were younger, stronger and more eager. “I do have faith,” Riley said afterward. “I do, because we’ve experienced this before.”
The Lakers had been in past holes. But they’d never been this divided; this angry; this intent on telling their coach to go to hell. They wanted to win. But did they need to? Did it consume them? No. Riley’s motivational speeches—delivered in high-pitched, desperate tones—fell upon tin ears. All the old themes (Family. Unity. Peripheral distractions) had shriveled and died. Players like Johnson, Worthy, Scott and Thompson were no longer eager kids seeking out guidance. They were hardened and jaded. The rah-rah blatherings failed to take.
On the morning after Game 3, Black received a call from the league that Riley had been named the NBA Coach of the Year. It was his first time receiving the honor, and the repeated slight had gnawed at him like a subway rat. He knew he was the best coach in basketball. And yet, he was continuously snubbed.
Black found Riley lounging by the pool at the Ritz-Carlton, shirt off, taking in the sun. “Hey, Pat, congratulations,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I just found out you won Coach of the Year. We need to schedule a press conference.”
Black waited for a reply. There was none. Riley, once again, was ignoring him. Just because he could. “It’s so fucked up,” Black said. “I’m telling him he won Coach of the Year, we need to schedule it, and he’s giving me—at most—yes and no answers.” Finally, Black said, curtly, “Pat, when do you want to do it?”
“Fuck it,” Riley said. “I’m not doing it.”
“What do you mean you’re not doing it?” Black said.
“I’m not doing it,” Riley replied. “Tell the league to go fuck themselves. I’m not gonna do it.”
“Pat, you’re not going to do a press conference?” Black said. His voice was raised. He was angry. “You just won the Coach of the Year. . . .”
“That’s right,” Riley said.
Black marched away.
“Of course, he did it,” Black said. “But that’s what it was like all year long. Every day I’d go into him with interview requests, and he was just a miserable prick. There’s no way I would have stayed with the Lakers if it meant working with Pat for another year.”
Riley begrudgingly accepted the Red Auerbach Trophy in a press conference on the morning of Tuesday, May 15, two days after the Lakers had wasted Johnson’s 43 points in a 114–101 Game 4 setback. He said all the right things (“This is a residual award of winning and I’d like to thank the players for that. . . .”), but by now words carried zero weight. Heading into Game 4, Riley had delivered a behind-closed-door sermon to his players that was, even by Hulkamania–meets–Jerry Falwell standards, downright crazy. Excluding Johnson, Riley went around the room and blamed everyone. Scott’s defense was invisible and his shots weren’t falling. Thompson was playing like an old woman. Worthy, averaging 23 points in the series, was forcing the action. Woolridge was a loser who belonged on loser teams. “He singled me out the other way and that kind of killed everything,” said Johnson. “‘Only one guy playing good in this whole group and that’s Buck!’ I was saying, ‘Oh, man.’ It was over. We were through after that meeting . . . no way we could beat them.”
Game 4 had been a mess. Scott, who demanded more shots, missed four early on, and Riley used a time-out to, specifically, humiliate him. “O.K., Buck, forget it!” Riley screamed. “If they’re not going to play, I’m going to run the same play every single time!” For most of the rest of the night, Riley called play after play for Johnson. Only he and Worthy took more
than ten shots. “And I changed [a play] one time and he got mad at me!” an incredulous Johnson said. “‘I told you to shoot!’”
The series returned to Los Angeles for Game 5, with the Lakers on the brink of elimination. That morning, during shootaround, Johnson and Cooper—Showtime brothers for more than a decade—nearly came to blows. Cooper accused his pal of ripping the team to the press; his exact words to the Los Angeles Times were a seemingly inoffensive “More guys have to play better.”
“You went in the paper and said guys got to play well,” Cooper said. “You’re pointing the finger!”
Johnson was stunned. “Michael,” he said, “did I say that Michael Cooper has to play well? Did I say that Byron Scott has to play well? Did I say that Orlando Woolridge has to play well?”
That night, the most miserable 63-win season came to a merciful completion. The Suns won, 106–103, and nary a tear was shed in the locker room.
The Lakers were happy to be done with it all.
CHAPTER 21
REFRESHMENT
On the afternoon of May 17, 1990, Pat Riley held his final team meeting of the season, expressing his great disappointment to a room stuffed with basketball players who detested him.
Afterward, he congregated in a Forum tunnel with the Lakers beat writers—almost all of whom had come to detest him, too. In quiet, thoughtful tones, he explained that he wasn’t certain whether he wanted to return for a tenth season as coach. “I’ve been with the Lakers for twenty years [as a player, broadcaster, assistant coach and head coach], and I can’t honestly say what I’m going to do,” he said. “That’s all. I don’t know. I have to sit down and think about what is in the best interests of the team. I love coaching. I know what it’s all about, but I can’t emphatically say right now.”
The media speculated. Riley stalled. Jerry Buss jabbered. Jerry West blathered—“I can’t imagine that a team can win sixty-three games and all of a sudden you want us to bomb the ship.” But as soon as the Phoenix series ended, Lakers executives agreed they would fire Pat Riley.
“He wanted to return,” said John Black, the media relations director, “and he would have come back were it up to him.”
Black sat in meetings with West and Buss as they decided how the whole awkward affair should be handled. Though Riley had grown out of favor, no one was looking to humiliate him. He was as responsible as anyone for bringing the franchise its greatest success. Riley’s 73.3 percent winning percentage was the best in league history. His 102 playoff victories were unrivaled. Plus, Jerry Buss didn’t do negative. It wasn’t in his catalogue. “We had this meeting,” said Black. “Pat was there, me, Jerry West, Jerry Buss. It wasn’t mean-spirited or even awkward. It was just, ‘How are we gonna do this? What are we gonna call this?’”
On June 11, 1990, members of the media were invited to the Forum for a press conference that had an eerily familiar feel. Nearly nine years earlier, Riley had stepped to a similar podium and—amidst great confusion—was named co–head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Now, amidst more great confusion, he was being fired. No, not fired—replaced. Well, sorta replaced, sorta resigning, sorta stepping aside, sorta just, ahem, leaving. “Man’s greatest fear is his fear of extinction, but what he fears more than that is insignificance,” Riley told a packed room, his voice cracking with emotion. “There is nothing wrong with being unique. They [the Lakers] were unique—above and beyond.
“The pressure to win in this league and the desire to win is so high. We know what we’re getting into when we get hired. I’m not fed up and I’m not burned out from coaching. I have as much energy as I’ve ever had at forty-five.”
The oddness of the event cannot be overstated. First, nearly everyone affiliated with the Lakers had known Riley was being dumped. Second, most of the reporters in attendance arrived under the assumption that he was being dumped. Third, Magic Johnson, the closest thing Riley had to a basketball son, was nowhere to be found. (Johnson issued a statement that read, in part, “When I’m older and somebody talks about Showtime, the first person I’ll think of is Pat Riley.”)
Fourth, those assembled could surmise the Lakers had already decided upon a replacement. He was, after all, sitting alongside Riley.
Not that Mike Dunleavy felt uncomfortable. Or awkward. Or, for that matter, much of anything. At the moment, he was simply in a happy-numb state, a thirty-six-year-old basketball junkie being handed the keys to the greatest franchise in the NBA. “It was,” he said, “the highlight of my career.”
Though the entire event was clouded by the unspoken knowledge that a torch passer was surrendering a flame he preferred to keep, Dunleavy’s glow served to obscure Riley’s gloom. As soon as the new Lakers coach began to speak, it was as if Riley vanished from the stage and a warm, refreshing breeze blew through the room. Could it be the team was now led by a man who wasn’t condescending? Who didn’t think himself to be God’s gift to coaching? Who would listen to his players and avoid demeaning them?
“I’m a lucky guy!” he yelped, explaining why he was hired. “I’ve been lucky all my life and this is no different.”
Dunleavy barely contained his excitement, and with good reason. What was he even doing here? Just one year earlier, he was working as the Milwaukee Bucks’ number two assistant, when he ran into West during the Los Angeles Summer League. “Jerry was the most respected guy in the league,” Dunleavy said. “I knew him well enough to say hello, but we’d never had a conversation before.” This time, Dunleavy took a deep breath and asked whether the Laker general manager could spare a moment to offer some advice. West invited him to sit down, and Dunleavy—a former journeyman shooting guard who’d played nine NBA seasons—emoted. He was working his rear off in Milwaukee but wasn’t sure it was getting him anywhere. “I could move to two teams and be their top assistant,” he said, “but do I need that to be considered for a head coaching position?”
“Absolutely not,” West said. “As a matter of fact, if Pat Riley resigned today, you’d be one of the first people I’d call.”
Dunleavy was speechless. One of the first calls? Hadn’t his playing career been an ode to scrappy mediocrity? Hadn’t he been a sixth-round draft choice out of South Carolina who survived on elbow grease and gumption? Wasn’t he an 8-point-per-game scorer? Even his coaching career was largely undistinguished. Thirteen years earlier, when he found himself jobless after being cut by the Philadelphia 76ers, Dunleavy served as the twenty-three-year-old player-coach of the Carolina Lightning of the All-American Basketball Alliance. His club won seven of eight games before the enterprise folded. “Mike was OK, I guess,” said Norton Barnhill, a Lightning guard. “But nothing much memorable about him.”
On December 1, 1984, Dunleavy, at the time a guard with Milwaukee, was a passenger on the Bucks’ flight to Baltimore when, while taxiing toward the gate, the plane jerked to a stop to avoid hitting a truck. His back went out, and never healed. His playing career was, for all intents, over. “I felt robbed,” said Dunleavy, who received a large financial settlement from the airline. “I had planned on playing a lot longer.” He became a Wall Street stockbroker, then, quickly, a miserable Wall Street stockbroker. “Wall Street was work,” he said. “Basketball is not like working to me.” He returned to the NBA before the financial crash of 1987, and never looked back.
Now he was on West’s list.
“How can you rate me that highly?” Dunleavy said. “I haven’t done anything.”
“Well,” said West, “does Don Nelson know you?”
The legendary former Bucks coach loved Dunleavy.
“And does Del Harris know you?”
Harris was Milwaukee’s coach. He, too, raved about Dunleavy, and trusted him with every facet of the game.
“Well,” West said, “they’re very good friends of mine and they say great things about you. I’ve watched you coach in the summer league, and you’re very good.”
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What Dunleavy didn’t know was that, around the league, he was a hot property. Here was a savvy basketball mind with a human touch. Dunleavy possessed the rare ability to relate with all players—black, white, rookie, veteran. He was young enough to have been in their shoes a short time ago (when the Bucks needed an emergency fill-in during the 1989–90 season, Dunleavy actually played, scoring 17 points in five games), but carried enough weight to demand respect. “If you have a coach who knows what’s going on—who really knows what’s going on—it’s a huge advantage,” said Tony Smith, a rookie Lakers guard familiar with Dunleavy from pickup games at Marquette University’s gym. “Mike knew what was going on.”
Dunleavy returned to Milwaukee after the meeting with West and helped the Bucks compile a solid 44-38 run. When the season ended, he and his wife, Emily, traveled to Los Angeles for a vacation. He called Mitch Kupchak, an old friend, and asked if he’d like to grab some dinner. The Lakers-Suns playoff series was going on, and Kupchak—Los Angeles’s assistant general manager—invited the Dunleavys to attend Game 5. The following morning, Dunleavy was eating breakfast at the Brighton Coffee Shop in Beverly Hills, casually thumbing through The National, a daily sports newspaper. “And at the end of this column,” Dunleavy said, “it read, ‘If Pat Riley loses this game tonight, look for Mike Dunleavy or Doug Collins to take this gang to Hawaii for training camp.’
“I was like, ‘What the hell is this crap? How stupid.’”
Though Dunleavy and Riley weren’t friends, an unspoken kinship existed based on New York upbringings (Dunleavy was born and raised in Brooklyn), hardscrabble playing careers and a passion for Xs and Os. Riley had been hardened by an unrelenting father who demanded perfection. Dunleavy had been hardened by playground basketball on the asphalt courts of Bedford-Stuyvesant. “I saw a lot at an early age,” he said.
Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty ofthe 1980s Page 49