Miami – LeBron James couldn’t help but notice Miami’s new floor Monday, with the word “Culture” splattered across midfield and team president Pat Riley’s long expletive painted on every lane.
James and the Los Angeles Lakers were the first opponents to arrive at the new arena, making their annual visit to Miami for a Monday night game. The court is part of the team’s major marketing plan for the 2023-24 season, which calls for the Heat to use new flooring and jerseys with “Culture” emblazoned on the front multiple times throughout the season.
James reminisced on Monday when asked about the court and reflecting on his four seasons in Miami — a period in which he made four NBA Finals appearances and won the first two of his four NBA championships. Back then, “culture” was the Heat’s philosophy and buzzword. It wasn’t until years later that it was splattered on a shirt.
“We didn’t really talk about it too much,” James said. “It’s just, you come in, you work, and what you put in the work is going to pay off on the field.”
The mantra of “the hardest-working, best-conditioned, most professional, selfless, toughest, meanest, dirtiest team in the NBA” has been at the core of what Riley has built and nurtured during his nearly 30 years in Miami.
“You know, I think everybody out there, they’ve probably heard it too much, they’re probably tired of hearing it,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of the “culture” credo . “But we don’t care. “You have to stand for something and we stand for that. “
In the summer of 2010, the Heat found a way to bring James and Chris Bosh to Miami to play alongside Dwyane Wade. Spoelstra – one of the league’s newest coaches at the time – is still coaching the Heat, and his current tenure with the franchise is the second-longest in the NBA, behind only Gregg Popovich of the Spurs.
For James, it’s the culture — Riley, Spoelstra, managing partner Mickey Arison, general manager Andy Ellisberger and many other executives — that he Be in Miami long before you get there, and stay there.
“Outside of the Spurs, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots, I think those are the only teams that can say have the same consistency as the Miami Heat,” James said.
James still sees similarities between his mindset and Riley’s.
“Lyles always said keep the main thing in mind,” James said. “That’s always been the case for me.”
James spent his first seven NBA seasons in Cleveland. He left Miami in 2014 and returned to Cleveland, where he won a championship in 2016 and is now in his sixth season with the Lakers. He won a championship there — against the Miami Heat in the 2020 rematch — also surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time scoring leader last season and is now the league’s oldest active player.
“I was 25 when I got here. Even though I’m seven years old, I’m still a kid. Still a kid,” James, who will one day have his jersey retired, said Monday after shooting practice at Heat Arena. “I’m here for one reason and one reason only – to win a championship. That’s my only goal. That’s the only reason I’m working with Wade and Bosh because I feel like I can’t do that in Cleveland. I Trying to recruit people to come to Cleveland, trying to go upstairs and help, but it didn’t happen. So, I had the opportunity to be a free agent and do what I thought was best for my career.”
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