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Plenty of revered NBA figures have had statues built in their honor, but only one of those statues is wearing a Giorgio Armani suit. On Sunday—a few hours before taking on their eternal rivals, the Boston Celtics—the Los Angeles Lakers unveiled an eight-foot bronze sculpture of Pat Riley, the most stylish coach in basketball history by a significant margin. Riley is immortalized exactly as he should be: Pacing the sideline in one of his perfectly tailored Armani suits, complete with a crocodile leather belt. “Giorgio was an incredible designer,” Riley told GQ. “What I love most about his clothes were the fabrics that he chose. I was proud to wear them.”
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The statue, which depicts Riley raising a fist to call a play, joins tributes to Lakers greats Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and beloved broadcaster Chick Hearn outside Crypto.com Arena. Per ESPN, Riley’s fist was the Showtime Lakers’ signal to give the ball to Abdul-Jabbar. That’s a fine bit of coaching, but most people with even a rudimentary understanding of basketball could have told their point guard to feed Kareem. What most NBA coaches could not do, however, is dress like Riley.
Riley, who still boasts a full head of coiffed white hair at 80 years old, won four championships as the Lakers’ head coach in the ’80s, and was also a shooting guard on LA’s 1972 title squad. (Since 2008, he has served as team president of the Miami Heat, and also won a chip as Miami’s head coach in 2006.) When he moved to the coaching ranks, his basketball prowess was matched only by his sideline attire, which drew the eye of players, fans, and the editors of GQ, who put him on the cover of the magazine in 1989. (“That was a mind blower for me,” Riley said of getting the cover treatment.) Riles was such a major player in the fashion world, in fact, that he inspired Gordon Gekko’s look in the classic film Wall Street. Michael Douglas, the actor who played Gekko, felt so indebted to Riley that he turned up in Downtown LA on Sunday to pay his respects at the statue reveal.
During the festivities, Riley also weighed in on the current crop of NBA coaches’ uninspiring half-zips. “I think when fans look over at the sidelines they want to see someone that looks like a leader,” Riley told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. We agree! While the Lakers have erected a physical monument to the Don, the NBA at large should pay tribute to Riley by forcing its coaches to put that shit on again. We need more bench bosses to think like Terry Stotts, the former head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, who dusted off this tartan beauty in 2014 as an homage to legendary Blazers coach Dr. Jack Ramsay.
While it’d be ideal for this to become a permanent leaguewide rule, even a one-night mandate for coaches to wear a suit and tie would be a sight for sore eyes. I mean, just gaze upon some of these photos and tell me that a plain black pullover with a tiny team logo on the chest is somehow better.
At the base of Riley’s new statue is a quote that reads: “There will come a time when you are challenged, and when that time comes, you must plant your feet. You must stand firm. You must make a point. About who you are, what you do, and where you come from. When that time comes, you do it.”
You hear that, JJ Redick, Erik Spoelstra, Mike Brown, and the rest of the men in charge of NBA locker rooms? The time has come. Plant your feet in some dress shoes and stand firm in the jacket and tie you were meant to wear. The drip god has spoken. You must make a point.