Miami Heat president Pat Riley has come under fire from Paul Pierce during this Jimmy Butler saga and Tim Hardaway Sr. has now come to his defense. During an appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio, Hardaway ripped into Pierce for claiming Riley is killing Heat culture.
“Let’s talk about Paul Pierce,” Hardaway said. “Paul Pierce said he’s better than Dwyane Wade. I’m gonna stop right there okay? You out your mind. You’ve been smoking too much, to tell you the truth. You’re not better than Dwyane Wade, okay?
You’ve been hating on the Miami Heat since Ray Allen left Boston to go to Miami Heat,” Hardaway added. “That’s why he’s not on Pat Riley’s side or the Miami Heat’s side. He’s been hating on the Miami Heat and Pat Riley since day one. Since they’ve been getting beat by the Miami Heat. So, he got personal vendetta against them. He’s not really speaking realistically.”
Pierce certainly isn’t all too fond of the Heat. He had some tense battles in the playoffs with them during his playing career and hasn’t exactly spoken glowingly of them after it either.
As Hardaway pointed out, Pierce also infamously claimed that he’s better than Dwyane Wade. While he was widely ridiculed for that statement, he has found some support for his recent one on Riley and the Heat. Pierce explained Riley is killing Heat culture by running stars out of town.
“Pat Riley brought Heat culture, and what I wanna say about that (is) I think he’s slowly destroying Heat culture,” Pierce said. “And what I mean by that, this new generation is different now. Guys—and Jimmy Butler is at the end of the new generation but coming up, when you look at where Heat culture started when Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal), and Lonzo (Alonzo Mourning), and (Udonis) Haslem, and (Dwyane) Wade and all got there, look what he’s done to his star players since Heat culture started.
“He ran Shaq out of town. You’ve ran LeBron out of town. You ran D-Wade out of town of all people, the one who (you) drafted, the one you won your first championship with,” Pierce continued. “Then, you kind of tried to make up for it. Now you’re running Jimmy Butler out of town.”
“This tells me that Heat culture lives and dies with Pat Riley and if he doesn’t change the way he is, kind of like stubborn and doesn’t want to pay guys, it’s his way or the highway, then I don’t see Heat culture being the same any longer,” Pierce concluded.
While Riley may not have been the biggest reason why Wade, LeBron James, and Shaquille O’Neal left the Heat, he certainly played a part in their departures, in one way or the other. As for Butler, the relationship between him and Riley never recovered after the latter told the former to keep his mouth shut.
Butler is also reportedly unhappy about not getting an extension and all that has led to him asking out. The Heat look set to lose their best player over the last six-odd years and they’re unlikely to get much in return for him either.
Riley might need to change his ways a little bit to handle today’s stars better but that’s unlikely. He has run the Heat with an iron fist all these years and will continue to do so.
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