Coaching legend, seven-time champ Riley prepares for Hall induction

MIAMI -- Moments before entering the Hall of Fame, Pat Riley could barely control his emotions.

Here Riley stood, championship ring on his finger and eyes misting ever so slightly, speaking of the 16 coaches whose philosophies were shaped into what became a legendary NBA career. He spoke of his mother, his friends and his childhood growing up in a neat house on Spruce Street in Schenectady, N.Y., a few hundred feet from Central Park, where his dad -- Riley's first, favorite and most formative coach -- would drive his Dodge atop a hill on cold winter nights, sip a beer and hear the radio broadcast of his son's college games at Kentucky.

"With where I came from," Riley said that night, his voice hushed and cracking a bit, "who would have believed it?"

But this didn't occur in Springfield, where basketball's best get immortalized.

This was in 2000, when Schenectady High enshrined Riley in its Hall of Fame.

If something like that moved Riley so much, imagine, what will be pulsing through his bloodstream Friday night, when receives his game's highest honor -- a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Riley is part of the class to be feted in Springfield, Mass., 100 miles east of his boyhood home, a distance close enough for the 63-year-old president of the Miami Heat and seven-time NBA champion to still feel like he's come full circle.

Rupp, Wade, Magic, Kareem ... Hall of Famer Riley has seen them all. (Getty Images)

"They asked me for my speech a month ago, because they want to be able to train the cameras on certain people," Riley said. "I said, I don't know what I'm going to say and I won't know what I'm going to say until that day, probably. I've got an idea, but I've got to give it some thought. I don't think it's going to be profound. It's going to be very simple. This is about other people. It's not about me."

For Riley, it's about Magic Johnson and Jerry West, the two men who will present him at the induction. It's about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who lost two games in high school at Power Memorial, one of those being to a Linton High team led by Riley, who would later coach him with the Los Angeles Lakers. It's about Adolph Rupp and Alonzo Mourning, Patrick Ewing and Dwyane Wade, Jerry Buss and Micky Arison.

They've all considered Riley a Hall of Famer for years.

Friday is merely formality.

"No question, it makes it official. It's like a wedding," Wade said. "You know what a common-law is? When you're with someone for so long, in common law, you're already married. But the wedding just makes it official. And that's what the Hall of Fame ceremony is for him. It's just going to make it official. But he's been Hall of Fame for many years to many different people."

More than anyone else, it's about Lee Riley, a minor-league baseball manager who died nearly four decades ago, yet is still the man his youngest son tries to emulate most.