Riley: LeBron James Leaving Was Shocking

Pat Riley spoke to seven reporters, including myself, in his first public comments since LeBron James left for Cleveland.

Here’s most of everything he had to say:

On LeBron’s departure: “Like Micky [Arison] said, both of us were shocked, but you recover. I don’t want to go back in history, but after 45 years, I think I’ve been around at least 15 transcendent players that have walked out the door – either left the team, retired, got traded, went somewhere else and you move on. We were shocked, but we recovered. People in this country have the right to do what they want to do. He wanted to go home. In our statements, we respected that. It was a tough blow.”

via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald