Riley forever a model of L.A. success

The coach behind the Showtime Lakers will have statue unveiled outside team’s arena.

- BY BRODERICK TURNER

JOE KENNEDY Los Angeles Times PAT RILEY celebrates with Magic Johnson after the Lakers beat the Celtics in the 1985 NBA Finals.

The Lakers had defeated the hated Boston Celtics in the 1987 NBA Finals and there stood coach Pat Riley at the Forum in Inglewood with a microphone in his hands and joyous players behind him relishing the moment.

Riley then made a declaration.

“I'm guaranteeing everyone here next year we are going to win it again,” Riley said.

He quickly looked back at his shocked players.

Byron Scott said it was the kind of moment that showed why Riley is having his statue unveiled by the Lakers on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena, and on the day L.A. plays the rival Celtics, no less.

Riley won four championships and reached the Finals seven times during nine years coaching the franchise for which he once played.

Scott said Riley is deserving of being immortalized among the Lakers greats: Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor and Chick Hearn, all of whom have statues in their honor.

Showtime, Scott said, was as much about Riley as Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper and James Worthy.

It had been almost 20 years since the last team that won back-to-back championships, the 1968-69 Celtics, and yet there was the “calculating” Riley making his guarantee.

“We're all sitting there at the Forum and he’s on the damn pedestal talking and he said, ‘I’m guaranteeing everyone here next year we are going to win it again.’ We were just like, ‘What did he just say? We're still trying to enjoy this one,’” Scott recalled, laughing. “He said it and he turned around real quick and kind of looked at us and we were all like, ‘Wait a minute.