After six straight seasons of making the playoffs, the Miami Heat fell short during the 2025-26 NBA season. Despite finishing with a better record compared to last year, the Heat failed to make it out of the play-in tournament.
After a lengthy stint as the team’s president, there was some thought that the 81-year-old Pat Riley would use the team’s disappointing finish as a way to exit his role.
But during Monday’s exit interview, Riley quickly squashed those rumors, saying he has no intention to retire, resign or step aside. Riley then said he was “pissed” and “disappointed” about the season, and said he’s already looked at offseason possibilities and additions.
While Riley said he was not happy with where the team finished, he added that he’s “not going to apologize” for the team only making the play-in tournament. “We didn’t want that,” he added. “We would have loved to have got sixth [place].”
Despite some fans clamoring for the team to completely tear it down, Riley said he’s not interested in doing that. He said the Heat were going to continue to try and win every single season, and that they’ve been able to do that — generally — during his tenure as team president. Riley, however, did admit that he’s not proud of the past three or four seasons — with the exception of the year the team made the NBA Finals.
While the Heat have remained competitive in recent years, they haven’t consistently made deep playoff runs. In the team’s last six playoff appearances, they’ve made the finals twice and Eastern Conference finals once, but have suffered a first-round exit three times.
The team managed those playoff appearances despite trading away star Jimmy Butler in 2025. The team hasn’t reached the same highs since that deal, but it doesn’t sound like Riley is interested in fully committing to a rebuild.
Instead, he’s going to continue to try and improve the core the Heat have in place … even if that means another season where they are fighting to make it out of the play-in tournament.
