The question was about whether the Heat accomplished their personnel goals with the regular season mere days away.
But the one thing with Pat Riley is it’s never about the question, only the answer the Miami Heat president had scripted on the ubiquitous blue note card he carried into Friday’s state-of-the-Heat preseason media session at AmericanAirlines Arena.
So, no, there was no true answer, just a soliloquy that touched on just about everyone from LeBron James to Dwyane Wade to Chris Bosh to Shane Battier and almost every other element of the roster.
“Well, if I could have gotten Dwight Howard and Chris Paul, then I would love that lineup,” he said with a snicker. “But that’s not possible. First of all, that’s five max contracts. And I just say that in jest, obviously.
“I don’t care what you have as a team. You never think you have enough. Even if I have a team like that, I’d think I wouldn’t have enough, because you’re always looking for more ways to improve.
Pat Riley (right) looks on with Heat scout Chet Kammerer during Thursday’s scrimmage at AmericanAirlines Arena. (Steve Mitchell, U.S. Presswire)
“So what we did in bringing Chris and LeBron and Dwyane back together with the other core members of the team is we are continually looking to improve.
“And I think signing Mario Chalmers back, he’s going into his fourth year now, I think as an improved point guard, a more mature point guard.
“And getting Shane to come and help with our perimeter players, we definitely are on the lookout for that type of player.
“We hope that Eddy Curry, who has been dedicated for the last five or six months, to get back to a game that we think could be very effective if he could stay in shape and not injured.
“The improvement of Dexter Pittman.
” I mean, we have to go in that route right now and I think we saw a little something last night in Norris Cole. I’m waiting for another month or two into the season to see where he is.
“But we will continue to try to tweak the team.
“But unless you make a major trade, you’re not going to get what you want. So we have to find good opportunities that sort of fall through the cracks.”
And so there is you answer, even if it didn’t necessarily address the question.
