Michael Jordan showed no mercy on former New York Knicks coach Pat Riley, even while they were vacationing.
Michael Jordan did his best to rip out former New York Knicks coach Pat Riley‘s heart during the playoffs in the nineties; and apparently, he also stole his presidential suite at a vacation resort.
The director of the smash-hit Jordan documentary The Last Dance revealed some stories left on the cutting room floor during a recent podcast interview with former Chicago Bulls player BJ Armstrong.
In one anecdote, the director, Jason Hehir, said Riley told him a story about Jordan one-upping him in a Hawaiian resort in either 1992 or 1993, after the season.
"“Riley’s staying in this presidential suite at a gorgeous resort in Hawaii,” Hehir said. “And the manager calls him up and says, ‘Mr. Riley, you have to clear your things out of the presidential suite, we have an unexpected guest, and we have to move you out’ … [Riley] goes down to the pool and the staff comes up and moves all his stuff out. He’s hanging out at the pool, and he looks up at the balcony, and Michael [Jordan] is on the balcony, his balcony, waving to him, from his original room.”"
Pat Riley was head coach of the Knicks during many Michael Jordan battles.
Riley was head coach of the Knicks from 1991-1995, before infamously fleeing New York for Miami, leaving a fax resignation behind.
After leading the showtime Lakers to four NBA championships, Riley brought a different style of play to New York in trying to beat Jordan and the Bulls in the first few seasons of their dynasty run. New York lost in an epic seven-game battle in 1992, and then blew a 2-0 series lead to lose in six games to Chicago in 1993.
So imagine the scenario for a second. Pat Riley, fresh off a brutal series loss in 1992, or perhaps two consecutive playoff defeats in 1993, is taking a rare vacation in Hawaii, and he needs to pack up all of his things so the man who beat him, Mr. Michael Jordan, could steal his VIP suite.
Classic Michael Jordan.
Jeff Van Gundy, who was an assistant under Riley before becoming head coach, recently said he hasn’t watched The Last Dance because he lived through it, so he doesn’t need to see it again. I wonder if Pat Riley feels the same way.