Riley to Miss Heat Games to Scout Prospects?

[lovehoops01]

I don't disagree with you that that is a very distinct possibility. Although if Marion does not opt out, they'd have to move some more players to get a lot of cap room because they already have $53 million on the books for next season.

The draft lottery was put in place exactly for this reason -- to keep teams from throwing seasons in order to vastly improve their team in the next season, which it appears is exactly what Miami is doing.

It's one thing not to play Wade -- I don't really have a problem with that if he's not healthy. You could argue that he never should have started playing him when he did, but once the season went down the toilet, then he started doing everything else he could do to make sure they lose.

But the coach leaves in the middle of the season, he sends his first-round pick from last season to the D-League. He seems to be sitting anybody with any experience at every little ding. To me, that just says that he is trying to lose on purpose. He pays scouts to scout and can see the players live in the offseason and watch tape of their games (and it's not like he doesn't have a history of leaving the team when it struggles). That's cheating the fans and the league, and could be changing the outcome of other playoff races. So to me, they don't deserve the No. 1 pick because of it. (And for whatever problems they think they had because of Shaq, well, Riley had something to do with that, too.)

[CB4MiamiHeat]

i like your optimismi Typhoon20 but we only have the MLE and LLE...remember Marion is making 17 million.

So we'll be adding to a 12 win team

1. A Rookie,
2. And a player along the lines of Gibson?, Diop?, James Jones? //
3. A better Wade

I see us jumping to .500 unless a trade is made.

[craig01]

Riley I'm sure has his eyes on Beasley.

I hope the ping pong balls do not cooperate.

[Flash3]

Riley's done this before, in terms of scouting. He was an active participant of basically all the tournaments in the 2003 season, the bosh-melo-wade draft.

But, then again, do you now have the trust of your team's scouting department to go on their words/views?

[damo[23]]

Kinda wierd that he'd abandon the team, but its not like him being there or not is going to make them much worse? Whats going to happen, lose 2 games in 1 night ... ?

[Cammo101]

"Riley to miss games because he built a team so bad he can't stand to watch it"

Fixed your headline.