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Alonzo Mourning knows better than anyone how badly Pat Riley still wants to win a championship.
The longtime team president of the Miami Heat is seeking his first championship since 2013 with the franchise. Although Riley certainly isn’t lacking in championship hardware as a nine-time NBA champion — as a head coach, assistant coach, executive and player — Mourning says Riley is as determined as ever to win a tenth.
“He’s 80 years old — what does that tell you? He’s still working,” Mourning told VideoGamer in an exclusive interview. “So he’s not working just to be working. He’s working to get something out of this. So yes, winning another title is the goal — and it’s always been the goal every year.”
Mourning originally joined the Heat franchise as a player in 1995. Although he was away from the franchise for a short period of time and began his career with the Charlotte Hornets, Mourning will always be synonymous with Miami.
The 6-foot-10 former center led the Heat to their first success as a franchise as the centerpiece in the late 90’s, leading them to a 61-21 record during the 1996-97 season and six consecutive playoff appearances.
During that time, Mourning won Defensive Player of the Year in back-to-back years (1999, 2000) and was an All-Star in four of those years.
Mourning has been in a longtime role — like Riley — with the Heat since his retirement, serving as the Vice President of Player Programs for the past 15 or so years. Another longtime member of the franchise, head coach Erik Spoelstra, joined the franchise as a video coordinator back in 1995 during Mourning’s first season in Miami.
Spoelstra has since grown into becoming one of the top head coaches in the league as a two-time champion. Furthermore, he’s by far the longest-tenured head coach in the NBA, having been hired by the Heat back in 2008.
Mourning says he can’t “envision” the 55-year-old Spoelstra coaching anywhere else. Spoelstra signed a record eight-year, $120 million contract extension with the Heat in 2024.
“Obviously, I couldn’t envision him anywhere else,” Mourning said. “He started from the bowels of our organization in the film role of cutting tape. Really cutting tape, VHS tape, to now being the head coach. I can’t think of a more perfect story. You look at his overall development and his growth through Pat Riley’s tutelage, he has the ultimate experience to prepare a team.”
The Heat are off to a surprising start this season at 14-8 and holding the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference. This is despite the fact that many observers did not have high expectations for the team in the post-Jimmy Butler era.
“He’s a proven champion,” Mourning said of Spoelstra. “He has the ultimate experience to prepare a team, and he’s showing it this year. He’s showing it when everybody in the preseason polls, they really didn’t count us as being one of the top teams in the East. He’s always taking that as a challenge and I think he’s truly stepping up to the challenge this year. It’s been fun to watch. It truly is.”
Mourning: LeBron reaching Tom Brady’s level of longevity success
While Mourning and LeBron James never played together, they both played significant roles in the Heat franchise. Mourning helped mold Miami into being an NBA contender and won a title with the Heat in 2006, while James led the Heat to back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.
The 40-year-old James — he’ll turn 41 years old in December — is currently in his record 23rd NBA season. And unlike the other players who played into their third decade in the league, James is still one of the league’s best, averaging 24.4 points, 8.2 assists and 7.8 rebounds per game during his age-40 year last season.
Fast forward to this year and James is taking on more of a role as a third option behind Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. Doncic is averaging 35.3 points per game while Reaves is averaging 28.1 points per game, allowing James to take on more of a secondary role with the Los Angeles Lakers.
So far in the season, it’s paid dividends as the Lakers have gotten off to a 15-5 start, the second-best record in the Western Conference. That was despite the fact that James missed the early portion of the season due to injury, with the four-time MVP only making five appearances so far.
“Nobody’s done it the way he’s done it, ever,” says Mourning of James. “Scoring leader in our history, and for him to play the most games, the most years, kinda speaks to his longevity. It speaks to how well he takes care of his body, how well he’s invested into his body. Kind of speaks to all of that.
“I think this is all entertaining to us to see somebody at his age do it the way he’s doing it, because it’s very rare. You think about the great ones — you think about Tom Brady, you think about Tiger — that really did it at ages where people wouldn’t expect them to excel, and LeBron is put in that category for sure.”
Mourning: Kon Knueppel can ‘flat-out shoot it’
When asked about some of the Hornets’ current faces, Kon Knueppel and LaMelo Ball, Mourning has some high praise for the former’s start to his NBA career. Knueppel has emerged as arguably the Rookie of the Year favorite by averaging 18.1 points per game on 45.7% from the field and 40.7% from beyond the arc.
“He can shoot, man,” says Mourning while laughing. “That’s all I can say. He can flat-out shoot it.”
Meanwhile, Ball — a 2022 All-Star guard — has dealt with serious injuries in recent seasons, limited to just 105 of a possible 246 games over the past three seasons. The Hornets remain one of the least-winning franchises in the NBA, posting the third-worst record in the league last season (19-63). So far this season, Charlotte is 6-16, holding one of the four worst records in the conference.
That has led to speculation that Ball could be traded, even though the former All-Star guard has denied those rumors. When asked where Ball would be a good fit, Mourning says Ball “will determine his future.”
“Man, I don’t know,” says Mourning of where Ball would be a good fit. “He’ll determine what his future is.”
Mourning: Amazing to be ‘immortalized’ in NBA Jam
Many years later, NBA Jam remains one of the most popular video games of all time. The 1993 video game is an iconic classic that became the first of its kind due to its arcadey version of how basketball is played along with notable catchphrases from voice actor Tim Kitzrow.
Mourning — one of the key players included in the game as a member of the Hornets — says it’s fun to be “immortalized” in a game.
“NBA Jam was a very popular game — it still somewhat is,” says Mourning. “I actually have an NBA Jam video game, a full model in the youth center. So, yeah, entertaining. It’s fun to know that you’re immortalized in a video game. If you look at me in that video game, I have a high-top fade in there. It’s pretty comical to see.”
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