Pat Riley says LeBron James 'did the right thing' when he left Heat

His franchise forever changed by both the arrival and departure of LeBron James, Miami Heat President Pat Riley, in an upcoming book by longtime NBA journalist Ian Thomsen, said that the championship forward "did the right thing" when he left the Heat in July 2014 after four consecutive trips to the NBA Finals to return to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers.

In the soon-to-be-released "The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown between LeBron, Kobe, Doc and Dirk that Saved the NBA," Riley said of James' departure, "I just finally came to accept the realization that he and his family said, 'You'll never, ever be accepted back in your hometown if you don't go back to try to win a title. Otherwise someday you'll go back there and have the scarlet letter on your back. You'll be the greatest player in the history of mankind, but back there, nobody's really going to accept you.' "

Riley's comments in the book were reported Monday by ESPN.

Riley also revealed in the book that James had asked him about the possibility of Riley returning to coaching both before joining the Heat in the 2010 offseason and then after the Heat's Big Three of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals, before winning championships in 2012 and '13.

"They wanted to know what was going to happen with Erik," Riley said of James' staff asking about coach Erik Spoelstra, who guided the Heat both before, through and since the team's four-year Big Three era. "They wondered if I was going to be coaching. I said, 'Look, Erik is the head coach, that's it. I support him. I'm not interested in coaching.' "

When asked a similar question after the 2011 Finals, Riley, according to the ESPN report on the book, said, "I remember LeBron looking at me, and he said, 'Don't you ever get the itch?' I said, 'The itch for what?' He said, 'The itch to coach again?' I said, 'No, I don't have the itch.' He didn't ask any more questions, and I didn't offer any more answers. But I know what it meant, and I always go back and wonder about what he was thinking at that time. He walked out scratching his leg like it was itching."

Riley said that the team's basketball-operations department was not part of the smoke-filled, over-the-top celebration of James' 2010 arrival.

"It threw gasoline on the fire," Riley is quoted from the book. "It did ring of some hubris on our part that was not planned."

Riley said it took a considerable period to get over James' departure.

"I had two to three days of tremendous anger. I was absolutely livid, which I expressed to myself and my closest friends," Riley said in the book according to the ESPN report. "My beautiful plan all of a sudden came crashing down. That team in ten years could have won five or six championships. But I get it. I get the whole chronicle of [LeBron's] life."

The Soul of Basketball" is scheduled for April 17 release.

iwinderman@sunsentinel.com. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ira.winderman

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