Riley replaces Van Gundy as Heat coach

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"Pat Riley returned as coach of the Miami Heat on Monday after Stan Van Gundy resigned for family reasons.

"It's not a lack of passion for coaching," Van Gundy said. "I still have it. Just not with the sacrifices you have to make.

"I'll help (the Heat) out any way I can after I spend some time with my family."

Club president Riley returns to the bench after surrendering the job to Van Gundy in October 2003.

Van Gundy, 46, steps aside after compiling a 112-73 record. Miami is 11-10 this season but is top of the Southeast Division."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=sportsNews&storyID=2005-12-12T173956Z_01_ROB263538_RTRUKOC_0_US-NBA-RILEY.xml

Family reasons? Heh.

The main thing that I am concerned about from this story is the idea that Shaq had something to do with the firing of Van Gundy and hiring of Riley. The thing that gets me is that I am not seeing the reaction that was given to Kobe. It was rumored and I believe never confirmed that Kobe got Jackson fired and Shaq shiped. As a result everybody hated Kobe. Now that it is rumored that Shaq had something to do with the firing of Van Gundy noone seems to care. It seems that people feel that it is/was okay for Shaq to chose his coach. I understand that Van Gunday is not as good of a coach as Jackson, but he did have a very good winning record with the Heat and he lead the team to a spot in the Conference finals. So why is Shaq good and Kobe bad?

I think the sexual assault accusations could have something to do with this.

That is not revelant. I did not as about being a good person based on character. It was rumored that Kobe got Shaq and Phil removed and Kobe was treated as if he was just a horrible person for that, not the sexual assault accusation. Now it is rumored that Shaq had a perfectly good coach removed and people do not seem to care. My point was why is Shaq being allowed to get away with it and Kobe was bashed for it.

I do not think it is right to demand that your coach gets removed in favor of someone else, but Kobe was not the first to do that and as we may have seen with Shaq Kobe has not been the last. As I said before my problem is that Shaq has been allowed to get away with maybe getting his coach replaced, but Kobe was not.