Don’t let other people tell you what you want. Pat Riley
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If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. Pat Riley
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There’s no such thing as coulda, shoulda, or woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it. Shoulda, coulda, and woulda won’t get it done. Pat Riley
When you leave it to chance, then all of a sudden, you don’t have any more luck. Pat Riley
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Teamwork requires that everyone’s efforts flow in a single direction. Feelings of significance happen when a team’s energy takes on a life of its own. Pat Riley
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If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually, you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges. Pat Riley
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You can only receive what you’re willing to give. Pat Riley
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Hard work guarantees you nothing, but without it you don’t stand a chance. Pat Riley
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I’ve learned to keep things simple. Look at your choices, pick the best one, then go to work with all your heart. Pat Riley
Pat Riley on Mental Strength and Toughness
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There can only be one state of mind as you approach any profound test; total concentration, a spirit of togetherness, and strength. Pat Riley
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Never be ready to play yesterday. Being ready to play today is what’s important. Pat Riley
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If you get tough mentally, you can get tough physically and overcome fatigue. Pat Riley
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We measure areas of performance that are often ignored: jumping in pursuit of every rebound even if you don’t get it, swatting at every pass, diving for loose balls, letting someone smash into you in order to draw the foul. These ‘effort’ statistics are also stored on computer. Effort is what ultimately separates journeyman players from impact players. Knowing how well a player executes all these little things is the key to unlocking career-best performances. Pat Riley
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The true warrior understands and siezes the moment by giving an effort so intense and so intuitive that it could only be called ‘one from the heart.’ Pat Riley
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We sometimes need adversity to fathom or true depths. Pat Riley
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All of us have at least one great voice deep inside. People are products of their environment. A lucky few are born into situations in which positive messages abound. Others grow up hearing messages of fear and failure, which they must block out so the positive can be heard. But the positive and courageous voice will always emerge, somewhere, sometime, for all of us. Listen for it, and your breakthroughs will come. Pat Riley
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Each Warrior wants to leave the mark of his will, his signature, on important acts he touches. This is not the voice of ego but of the human spirit, rising up and declaring that it has something to contribute to the solution of the hardest problems, no matter how vexing! Pat Riley
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Great players and great teams want to be driven. They want to be pushed to the edge. They don’t want to be cheated. Ordinary players and average teams want it to be easy. Pat Riley
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The key to teamwork is to learn a role, accept a role, and strive to become excellent playing it. Pat Riley
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When a milestone is conquered, the subtle erosion called entitlement begins its consuming grind. The team regards its greatness as a trait and a right. Half hearted effort can become habit and sap a champion. Pat Riley
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It’s what you get from the games you lose that is extremely important. Pat Riley
Coach Riley on Success
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Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable. Pat Riley
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From nobody to upstart. From upstart to contender. From contender to winner. From winner to champion. From champion to dynasty. Pat Riley
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Great effort springs naturally from a great attitude. Pat Riley Quotes
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The changes in your life aren’t always what you hoped for. But they usually help you grow. Pat Riley.
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The key to success is to learn to do something right and then do it right every time. Pat Riley
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There’s always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that. But a champion needs, in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning. Pat Riley
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Excellence is the gradual result of always striving each day to both do and be better than you were yesterday. Pat Riley
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You prove your worth with your actions, not your mouth. Pat Riley
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You have to defeat a great player’s aura more than his game. Pat Riley
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Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss. Pat Riley
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When you’re playing against a stacked deck, compete even harder. Show the world how much you’ll fight for the winners circle. If you do, someday the cellophane will crackle off a fresh pack, one that belongs to you, and the cards will be stacked in your favor. Pat Riley
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People who create 20% of the results will begin believing they deserve 80% of the rewards. Pat Riley
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You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again. Pat Riley
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To have long-term success in any position of leadership, you have to be obsessed in some way. Pat Riley
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The most DIFFICULT thing for individuals to do when they become part of a team is to sacrifice, it is much EASIER to be selfish. Pat Riley
In every adversity, there is a seed of an equivalent benefit. Pat Riley
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When a gifted team dedicates itself to unselfish trust and combines instinct with boldness and effort, its ready to climb. Pat Riley
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Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn’t, management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team’s mission. Pat Riley Quotes
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In all the research you do as a coach, studying other coaches and championship-type situations, you find that all those teams combined talent with great defense. You’ve got to stop other teams to win. Pat Riley
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Whatever it takes to win. Pat Riley
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You can never have enough talent. Pat Riley
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A particular shot or way of moving the ball can be a player’s personal signature, but efficiency of performance is what wins the game for the team. Pat Riley
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Great players crave instruction on their weaknesses. Pat Riley
If you know of any Pat Riley quotes that we left out and should be added to our list, please leave your suggestion in the comments below.
Pat Riley Biography
Patrick James Riley was born March 20, 1945 in Rome, New York and grew up in Schenectady, New York His father, Leon, was a minor league baseball player for 22 season. In 1944 he played in the majors for four games for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Riley played basketball for Linton High School. In 1961, his Linton High School’s beat New York City’s Power Memorial (led by Lew Alcindor who would later become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) Those two would meet again as Riley began his coaching career with the Los Angles Lakers and Abdul-Jabbar was completing his career as a player.
He then attended the University of Kentucky and played basketball for three years. Riley’s junior year, during the 1965-66 season, he was named the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Player of the Year and Associated Press (AP) Third Team All-American. Kentucky lost to Texas Western (now The University of Texas at El Paso) in the NCAA title game. That game inspired the movie Glory Road. His jersey number 42 has been retired at Kentucky.
Riley is most known for his career as a an extremely successful Coach and Executive in the National Basketball Association. Prior to that, he played in the NBA for nine seasons with the San Diego (now Houston) Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, and Phoenix Suns. In all, he played in 528 regular season games and had a career scoring average of 7.4 points per game. He played in 44 playoff games and played a key role off the bench for the 1972 NBA Champion Lakers.
Riley began his coaching career as an assitant with the Lakers in 1979 and was the Laker Head Coach from 1981 to 1990. He coached the New York Knicks from 1991-1995, and the Miami Heat from 1995-2003 and again from 2005-2008. In 2008, Riley assumed the postion of Team President for the Heat.
Riley’s teams have won Nine NBA Championships–one as a player, one as an assistant coach, five as a head coach, and two as an executive. He was named NBA coach of the year three times: 1989-90, 1992-93, and 1996-97. He is the first North American sports figure to win a championship as a player, as an assistant coach, as a head coach, and as an executive. His teams (including his time as a player, assistant, Head Coach, and executive reached the NBA finals in six different decades.
In 1996, Riley was named one of the 10 Greatest Coaches in NBA history. On June 20, 2021, he was awarded the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award by the NBA Coaches Association.