MILWAUKEE — Talking with reporters following his statue unveiling in Los Angeles on Sunday to honor his time coaching the Showtime Lakers, Hall of Famer Pat Riley made a simple request.
“What a coach should wear, I wish it went back to coat and ties,” Riley said. “I think an audience wants to see somebody on the sidelines who looks like a leader, dresses like a leader, acts like a leader.”
During his statue unveiling ceremony, Riley joked that his former players included in the event would be fined for not wearing a tie, except for James Worthy, who sported a navy blue tie with white stripes.
Current Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra — who has worked for Riley for almost three decades — acknowledged it was not the first time his boss had brought up the topic.
“Pat and I debate about this all the time,” Spoelstra said before the Heat took on the Bucks in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. “We went to the Hall of Fame this year for Micky Arison and so I had to wear back-to-back nights of suits, and I swear that was all Pat was talking about.”
Arison, the longtime owner of the Heat, was inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of the 2025 class this past summer.
“He’s like, ‘See, you look great, you look presentable,’” Spoelstra continued. “And I said, ‘Well, I had to go get these just for this weekend, and I don’t plan on wearing them again until the next Hall of Fame event we get to go to.’”
And that’s the reality for most NBA coaches. During the NBA bubble in 2020, the NBA relaxed the dress code for coaches as the league finished the 2019-20 season in Florida. Those changes have remained in place for the last five seasons as coaches have done away with suits and ties and instead opted for quarter-zip sweatshirts and polos.
“We’ve had several votes over the last few years, and it’s well over 80 percent to 20 percent that is in favor of what we’re doing presently, and it’s closer to 85 or 90,” Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said before last year’s NBA Finals, when he was in his 20th and final season as president of the National Basketball Coaches Association. “The coaches’ association, we listen to all members. It’s not just head coaches. It’s head coaches and assistant coaches. It’s over 200 members, and we listen very carefully.”
While Riley’s suggestion might fall on deaf ears among many in the NBA coaching community, he has at least one supporter: Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers.
Rivers, who played for Riley for 2 1/2 seasons and credits Riley for convincing him to get into head coaching, heard his former coach’s suggestion, but thought a compromise might be needed for NBA coaches to go back to wearing suits on the sidelines.
“It’s a tough one because quarter-zips are so comfortable. They’re so easy to wear,” Rivers said. “I will say this, and I brought this up to someone (and) that’s going to go through the chain: I do think it wouldn’t be a bad idea during playoffs because the most you’re going to travel for is two games, and wearing suits in the playoffs shows the significance of the playoffs.
“Easy to travel (with suits in the playoffs). I would be in favor of that one … other than, I would have to start working out again because none of my suits would fit anymore.”
Spoelstra shared that he thought quarter-zips were enough to differentiate coaches.
“I think as long as we look professional, look different than the players, that’s great,” Spoelstra said. “I think it’s becoming a little bit different anyways in corporate America.
“But then I also see Pat’s point of view. When I see the footage of him from the Lakers to the Knicks to the Heat, he did look sharp.”
In the end though, Spoelstra suggested that part of his hesitance in going back to suits was that he and other coaches would never be able to make it look as good as Riley did when he was patrolling sidelines in fitted Armani suits.
“But he wore suits differently than us mortals,” Spoelstra said. “We just didn’t look the same as the way he looked. That was an iconic Armani look.”
Spoelstra recalled that even though Riley gifted him suits to wear on the sidelines as an assistant coach in the late ’90s, he ended up looking more like David Byrne than a professional basketball coach.
“In fact, he gave me a few suits back when I was an assistant coach, but I looked like the lead singer for the Talking Heads,” Spoelstra joked. “Yeah, that’s what I looked like. I didn’t realize I had to tailor the suits.”