Lakers announce statue honoring legendary coach Pat Riley will be unveiled on Feb. 22

Yahoo

3 days ago

With the NBA revealing its full 2025-26 regular-season schedule on Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers announced the date when former head coach Pat Riley will be honored with a statue unveiled outside Crypto.com Arena.
The statue will be presented to the public on Sunday, Feb. 22 on Star Plaza outside the Lakers' home arena before the team's matchup with the Boston Celtics, the team announced on Thursday.
The Lakers originally announced that a statue honoring Riley would be unveiled at some point in 2026, but didn't have an exact date at the time. Riley will be the eighth figure to be so honored by the team, joining Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Chick Hearn and Elgin Baylor on the plaza.
During his tenure as Lakers head coach from 1981 to 1990, Riley's teams won four NBA championships. The Lakers won 50 or more games in each of his nine seasons on the sideline, winning 60-plus games in five of those seasons. He was awarded NBA Coach of the Year honors in 1989-90 when the Lakers finished 63-19.
"Pat is a Lakers icon," Lakers team owner Jeanie Buss said in a statement released in November. "His professionalism, commitment to his craft and game preparation paved the way for the coaching we see across the league today.
"My dad recognized Pat's obsession and ability to take talented players and coalesce them into a championship team. The style of basketball Pat and the Lakers created in the 80s is still the blueprint for the organization today: an entertaining and winning team."
Riley also became an iconic face of the "Showtime" era that was arguably the most successful in Lakers history. The origins of that era were chronicled in 2022-23 for a new generation of NBA fans in the HBO dramatic series, "Winning Time," based on Jeff Pearlman's 2014 book "Showtime."
The Lakers had a bitter rivalry for NBA supremacy with the Celtics during the 1980s, which is surely why the ceremony will take place before hosting Boston on their home court.
Riley's 533 regular-season wins are the second-most among the franchise's head coaches, behind Phil Jackson's 610 victories. Altogether, including playoff wins, Riley won 635 games with the Lakers.
As "Winning Time" also reminded fans, Riley's history with the Lakers goes back further than his tenure as head coach. He played for the team from 1970-75, averaging 7.8 points per game as a shooting guard, and was a member of the 1971-72 Lakers squad that won 33 consecutive games and an NBA title.
Riley was also an assistant coach for three seasons under head coach Paul Westhead, a span during which the Lakerss won two NBA championships.
Currently, Riley is the team president and a minority owner of the Miami Heat. After leaving the Lakers following the 1989-90 seson, he coached the New York Knicks for four seasons and another 11 seasons with the Heat. He won an NBA title with Miami in 2006. With 1,210 wins as an NBA head coach, Riley ranks fifth all-time in league history.