After taking over as the president and head coach of the Miami Heat in 1995, Pat Riley implemented strict rules to ensure his roster was in better shape than any other team in the league. Players who failed to adhere to his standards were either benched or fined. Every player on the team had to buy into the ‘Heat Culture’ Riley propagated. Most had no issues with the rules. Well, some did but followed them anyway. And then there was Shaquille O’Neal, who despised them and butted heads with Riley over them.
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In his biography Shaq Uncut: My Story, the four-time NBA champion revealed that he had found Riley’s rule of players maintaining a body fat percentage of under 13 ridiculous.
Shaq was perplexed when Riley suspended Antonie Walker and James Posey for showing up to training camp overweight. He voiced his frustration about it. O’Neal questioned Riley whether he had expected Magic Johnson to meet his 13% body fat requirement during his time as the Lakers’ head coach. Shaq wrote:
“The body fat crusade was on overdrive and I was tired of it. Tired of walking around drinking water twenty-four hours a day. Tired of eating food for rabbits. I told the guys, “Do you honestly think Riley was doing this in LA? Do you really think he was pinching Magic Johnson’s waistline every day?”
Riley’s fixation on discipline and O’Neal’s lackadaisical attitude toward it were bound to cause friction. They managed to work together for three-and-a-half years without any major issues. However, when it finally boiled over, it heralded the end of the center’s time in Miami.
Shaq and Riley got into a physical altercation
The Heat got off to a disastrous start in the 2007-08 season. They were 8-23 and sitting near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings at one point. Riley was frustrated and on edge in practice and lashed out at his players for the most minuscule indiscretions.
O’Neal wasn’t too pleased about the head coach’s attitude and when he confronted him, it nearly led to a brawl between them. Shaq recalled the incident which he believes was the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to his exit from Miami. He wrote in his book:
“So we’re about to start practice and Jason Williams comes in about ten seconds late. Pat being Pat, he starts swearing at him and screaming, ‘Get the hell out of here!’ I tell Pat we’re a team and we need to stick together, not throw guys out of the gym. Pat is screaming at me and says if I don’t like it, then I should get the hell out of practice, too.”
The four-time NBA champion was incensed about Riley’s tone and lost his cool. He added:
“That’s when I said, ‘Why don’t you make me?’ I start taking a couple of steps towards Pat… it’s me and Riley face-to-face, jaw to jaw. I’m poking him in the chest and he keeps slapping my finger away and it’s getting nasty. Noisy, too. He’s yelling ‘F**k you!’ and I’m yelling back, ‘No, f**k you!'”
The skirmish ended with them hurling abuses at each other. However, just a few weeks later, Riley traded O’Neal to the Phoenix Suns.
Many predicted that the duo’s starkly contrasting personalities and attitudes toward discipline and fitness would lead to arguments. They did not let their differences affect their professional relationship for the most part though. But it eventually did come to blows and led to an ugly separation.
