Pat Riley: Heat Looking To Add Talent As ‘You Can Always Use More’

Heat president Pat Riley says a run to the Eastern Conference finals was nice, but that’s never the primary goal. If you know Riley, it’s always about the opportunity to play for a championship.

So the Heat may have some moves ahead in an attempt to make the roster even better alongside resident star Jimmy Butler.

“You have to be, I think, very proactive in looking at how you’re going to improve,” Riley said, via Tim Reynolds of the AP.

The Heat finished 53-29, the best record in the Eastern Conference. But they were eliminated by the Celtics in their quest to reach the Finals, losing Game 7 on their own court.

So yes, Riley will listen if a rival team wants to make a deal.

“You can always think about running it back and be successful,” Riley said, via Reynolds. “But is that going to be what’s going to lead to a championship? And that’s all you think about.”

Butler, Bam Adebayo and Kyle Lowry remain under contract for a few more seasons — though some might wonder if it isn’t time for Lowry to come off the bench and reigning Sixth Man of the Year Tyler Herro to start.

But the bottom line is, the Heat may serve themselves well by finding help around the edges, and Riley will be the first to tell you he understands that.

“I think we all realize that you can always use more,” Riley said, via Reynolds. “Especially when you’ve gone through a season, then you’ve gotten the result, then you can analyze the result and why it wasn’t as good as you thought it should be. We’re always going to try to improve the team.

“I thought we had an absolutely great year. It was a tremendous story that was developing. But with a lot of stories, the endings aren’t very good. But I thought we had a year we could really be proud of.”