Despite Pat Riley’s controversial departure from the New York Knicks to the Miami Heat way back in 1995, his influence still holds sway in New York. According to a report from Marc Berman of the New York Post, team president Steve Mills reached out to Riley to find out more about David Fizdale. Mills told Berman:
“I asked him a lot of questions. ‘What do you think David’s learned from his experience in Miami to his experiences in Memphis?’ Pat had some real insight, what he left with Miami and planned on instilling in Memphis, what went wrong and how he came back to fix it.