Heat team president Pat Riley addresses how organization has handled the coronavirus suspension
Miami Heat team president Pat Riley had been relatively quiet since the NBA suspended play because of the coronavirus situation March 11.
On Friday, he broke his silence.
Riley released a video detailing the strategy of how the organization has dealt with the work stoppage and the plan moving forward. It has been a team effort throughout the organization, ranging from players to coach Erik Spoelstra to strenght coach Eric Foran to trainer Jay Sabol.
"We got together with our players for two, three straight days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then on Sunday we got the news that we had to shut down all the facilities and everything," Riley said in a video posted to all the Heat's social media accounts. "From that point on, we simply started to develop a strategy to stay connected with our players, to engage our players, to send our memos to them. I think Coach Spo and Eric Foran and the whole staff, downstairs Jay Sabol and his group have done an incredible job of conditioning our players with the Zoom videos four or five days a week, sending out letters, sending out motivational statements, Jay Sabol checking in every single night with our guys to see if they're OK. We've been monitoring that as we can."
After initially halting play for 30 days, league commissioner has extended it until at least the end of April. Then he will re-assess the situation along with executives from other professional leagues.
"We're waiting for probably the most challenging decision that Adam Silver and his staff, not only in our sport but in every other sport [has made]," Riley said. "He is being very cautious. I think that's great and he's going to rely on science. I think we have to rely on science because this will be an unprecedented move when he decides to start this thing back up."
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