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Since departing the league in the summer of 2024, Patrick Beverley has become a prominent figure in the NBA media. Not only because he put together a stellar 12-year NBA career, but also because of the stories that came along with the inspirational journey of scratching and clawing his way onto a roster.
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Pat Bev entered the league in an unconventional manner. There were stints overseas. There were training camp deals that amounted to nothing. There were empty promises that put him NBA dream on hold.
Pat Bev recalls the call with Pat Riley that changed his life
Through it all, however, there was one conversation with Miami Heat President Pat Riley that changed the course of his basketball life. As Beverly details, Riley gave him the NBA lifeline he had always wanted in 2009.
“It comes to pick 41 to the Lakers I say ‘sh*t I’m like Kobe Bryant’, and then I get the call that they traded me from Lakers to the Heat for the number 41 pick. Then I think ‘I’m about to play with D-Wade’. I was going crazy, then I looked at my phone and it’s a 305 area code. I answer it, and I take it outside. I hear, ‘Patrick, welcome to Miami Heat, this is Pat Riley, whatever you need, I’m here, you’ll be great. How quickly can you get here?’. I said ‘I’ll be there tomorrow'” Beverley
Pat Bev has seen it all
This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard about Riley bestowing his wisdom and knowledge on the younger generation. People tend to forget that Riley has been part of the NBA more years than he hasn’t. He’s been a player. He’s been a head coach. He’s been a front office operator. Now, he’s a President. Along the way, he’s seen it all. Every type of player. Every type of personality, every type of situation that can exist in the league. Incredibly, he hasn’t just sat there and watched it pass him by, either; he’s been unbelievably successful in the process.
Riley has won at every level. As a player in 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers. Five times as a head coach with the Lakers and the Miami Heat. And twice as an executive with the Heat. He’s been a serial winner throughout the league’s history, so when he went out of his way to give Beverley advice, it was in his best interest to listen to those words and get on a plane as soon as possible.
Even now at 81 years old, he’s still obsessed with winning. Look no further than the Heat’s pursuit of superstar forward Giannis Antetokounmpo this offseason in the hopes of bringing another title to South Beach. Despite it all, however, one commitment he’s always made time for was helping out as many people as possible along the way, with Beverley being one of them.
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Beverley was the beneficiary of Riley’s advice
To his credit, Pat Bev never forgot those words or the message behind them. No matter how anyone feels towards him personally, no one could question Beverley’s relentlessness as a competitor, his will to win and the impact he had on the floor during the height of his career.
It’s not everyday that players are humble enough to take on the advice of others in a professional setting. He could have easily ignored Riley’s comments and continued doing the things he was doing that got him drafted in the first place. He was intelligent enough to recognize who was speaking, however, and the elite status and reputation of certain people in basketball have never been lost on the 38-year-old.
Now, sitting in a podcast studio, he draws in millions of viewers by discussing those moments. Those career intersections that could have easily gone the other way. The small moments that have the potential to rewrite an entire basketball story.
At that moment, he knew though. He knew how valuable the advice on offer was for taking the opportunity seriously. He absorbed it and ran with it, and that’s exactly why he’s been written about right now.
Related: “There were no planes, no buses” – Patrick Beverley talks about his wild experience playing in the Ukrainian second division for $6K a month
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This story was originally published September 14, 2026 at 7:53 AM.