Asking former Miami Heat players about what it’s like under the Pat Riley regime would certainly give them war flashbacks. Whether it’s maintaining the strictest of diets or making sure you’re not a second late to practice, Riley ran a tight ship. Dwyane Wade, the greatest Heat of all time, knows this better than anyone.
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Wade has repeatedly praised Riley for the man that he is. But that hasn’t stopped him from getting in a few jabs here and there, all enveloped in love of course.
“There’s a little micromanaging going on. Micromanaging sometimes it feels petty. So, if you’re petty and I’m petty, then we’re going to get petty,” said Wade. Given Pat’s proclivity to be in the know on everything that happens in his organization, this makes sense.
What also is on brand for Riley is to send his team off for military-esque training before the start of a season. After LeBron James and Chris Bosh formed the ‘Heatles’ in South Beach alongside D-Wade, Pat knew he had to get his troops in line.
On his podcast, Wade spoke on this militant camp him and his teammates were sent off to. Safe to say that he didn’t enjoy this all too much.
“It was awful. It was no luxuries. They had us in such a militant mindset. Bro, it was crazy. We had to sleep and eat at certain times. You had whatever food that was prepared,” said Wade. “We couldn’t wait to get back to Miami. No, it wasn’t good.”
Hearing the way he describes this experience makes it seem as though players were tortured. But reading what he says without the emotion in his voice makes it seem as though this was a fairly regular training camp with strict timings and a diet.
Though, as this is a Pat Riley/Heat training story, nothing can be overruled. This is someone who would measure his players’ body fat percentage on a regular basis and shame them if they went above a certain threshold so fair enough.
Wade has come around on it though as in the same conversation, he gave props to the kind of preparation it gave him. “The military kind of put us in the mindset of ‘it’s us against y’all’.”
Miami was one of the most hated North American sports franchises from 2010-14 so this training definitely did help. And it did result in a back-to-back title run and four consecutive Finals appearances so perhaps this is exactly what was needed to set the tone for close to half a decade of excellence.
