MIAMI — When Miami Heat owner Micky Arison is inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame later this week, Heat president Pat Riley will be by his side.

Along with Heat icons Alonzo Mourning and Dwyane Wade, Riley is among the presenters for Arison’s enshrinement during Saturday night’s induction ceremony for the 2025 class in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Riley has also been by Arison’s side throughout his soon-to-be Hall of Fame tenure as the Heat’s owner, as Monday marked the 30th anniversary of Riley’s arrival in Miami. With Arison leading the way, the Heat sent a first-round pick and $1 million to the New York Knicks to land Riley on Sept. 1, 1995.

Riley ended up spending 11 seasons as the Heat’s head coach and has served as the team president since he arrived, becoming one of the most successful figures in South Florida sports.

Arison and Riley have each been with the Heat for the past 30 seasons, teaming up to build an organization that is considered one of the NBA’s most successful franchises during that time.

“As an owner, to me, he showed tremendous loyalty to myself, our staff, the people in the organization that have been there ever since he bought it,” Riley said of Arison during a conference call with South Florida reporters on Monday afternoon. “He’s a tremendously honest guy. He’s always been very honest with me, whether I wanted to hear it or not. We’ve always had that kind of relationship. And I believe that he’s very sincere about what he really wanted to accomplish, which he really wanted to win. He’s a winner.

“So I trusted Micky from that standpoint. I think what we’ve been able to accomplish over the 30 years is really good. We’ve built something, I think, that South Florida enjoys from a sports entertainment concept and winning championships and getting to the Eastern Conference finals. But more than that, I think that night in and night out Micky wanted to make sure that the people in South Florida thought we could win, we were competitive. Even the years that we knew that we may not be the team, we fought like hell to be the team.”

With Arison and Riley at the helm over the last 30 years, the Heat has won three NBA championships (2006, 2012, 2013). The Heat has also made seven NBA Finals appearances, made 10 Eastern Conference Finals appearances, won 16 division titles and advanced to the playoffs 23 times.

Only the Los Angeles Lakers (six NBA championships), San Antonio Spurs (five) and Golden State Warriors (four) have won more NBA titles than the Heat over the last 30 years.

Prior to Arison and Riley taking over, the Heat didn’t win a playoff series through its first seven seasons of existence.

“Micky, when he controlled and bought the interest in the Heat in 1995 and got managing control of the Heat, that’s the day that the franchise took a turn and unbeknownst to a lot of people,” said Riley who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a head coach in 2008 and was recognized as one of the 15 greatest coaches in NBA history in 2022. “They didn’t know what kind of turn it was going to be, but that’s the day that the franchise began to move in another direction.

“He saved basically my coaching life, I think. When I look back at that summer [1995], it was highly doubtful that I was actually going to be able to coach the next year or whatever. So when that finally came to fruition and I became the coach in September [1995], we both went to work and we went to work on trying to make the team better.”

With Arison as owner, the Heat has made aggressive moves to acquire stars like Mourning, Tim Hardaway, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Goran Dragic and Jimmy Butler through trades or free agency over the years.

“He’s a risk taker,” Riley, 80, continued on Arison. “If you’re going to win big, you got to take some risks and you don’t even know what the outcome might be. But you have to take some risks.

“Micky and I had that kind of relationship back and forth, but always positive about what we’re trying to do. If he didn’t like something, he would tell me, ‘I don’t think we should go that way,’ and I wouldn’t go that way. If he said, ‘Go for it. Damn right, let’s go for it,’ we had the same mentality. But if you don’t take a risk — a Big 3 type risk, Lamar Odom type risk or Shaquille O’Neal type risk or Jimmy Butler type risk or whatever it is — then you’re too afraid and there’s a fear of failure there. So when you make a calculated risk, he has made a lot of them with me — some of them haven’t worked, some of them have worked big time.”

Arison’s resume also includes a three-year term as the chairman of the NBA Board of Governors that began in October 2005 and his family has been involved with the organization since his father Ted Arison brought the franchise to the NBA in 1988. Arison’s son, Nick Arison, has served as the Heat’s Chief Executive Officer since July 2011.

Under Arison’s leadership, the Heat also earned the NBA’s 2021 Sales & Marketing Team of the Year award. In November 2020, Arison was named to the board of the NBA’s Social Justice Coalition that focuses on action and change around voting access and criminal justice reform at the national, state and local levels. In 2018, the Heat captured the NBA’s inaugural Inclusion Leadership Award for the franchise’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

The Arison family has supported a variety of arts-related and community service organizations around South Florida. Organizations supported by the Arison family include World Central Kitchen, Wounded Warriors, ICA Miami, Miami Children’s Museum, Jackson Memorial Foundation, Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Project Medishare for Haiti, Direct Relief, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Miami, United Way of Miami Dade, Chapman Partnership, Lotus House, Overtown Youth Center, Feeding South Florida, among others.

Away from basketball, Arison has helped lead Carnival Corporation for more than three decades. He’s currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc.

“I think the level of gratitude after 30 years that I feel and the freedom from burden, from him burdening me with things,” Riley said., “Or [Heat coach Erik Spoelstra], or [Heat general manager Andy Elisburg] or Nick, or on the business side, there’s not a lot of burden.

“You feel grateful to be there, you do your job, you do the best job you can do and then you move on to a new day of growth. You just do. That’s sort of the story of this relationship is 30 years, you got to leave the bad things behind and you go start a new day every day with something positive to look forward to.”

Arison, 76, has declined interview requests ahead of his Hall of Fame enshrinement. He prefers to stay out of the spotlight, but he’ll need to give his induction speech on Saturday night.

“I think that’s one of the things that endears a lot of people with Micky. He’s shy,” Riley said. “He’s always been in the background, that’s his choice. But I’m telling you in the boardroom, he’s at the front of the room and he’s making the calls. He gives the credit to everybody else. He doesn’t like to be out there giving public speeches and stuff like that. But I told him, ‘You got to get ready for this one.’”

Arison will become the 11th person with Heat ties to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, joining Billy Cunningham (1986), Bob McAdoo (2000), Riley (2008), Gary Payton (2013), Mourning (2014), O’Neal (2016), Ray Allen (2018), Bosh (2021), Hardaway (2022) and Wade (2023).

The entire 2025 Basketball Hall of Fame class was unveiled in April. This year’s class also includes Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles, Danny Crawford, Billy Donovan and the 2008 U.S. Olympic men’s team, with Arison selected for the Hall of Fame by the Contributors Committee. “He’s a man that is a legacy owner and I think the Hall is starting to take a look at these legacy owners,” Riley said. “They’re looking at what these owners have done besides just buy teams. Micky is totally invested as a singular proprietor in Miami and with the Heat. So I think this induction into the Hall of Fame is so well worth it and he’s really deserving of it.”

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