not so sure if Pat Riley is a good GM or not, their Big 3 basically got together way before that...
I leave out the Heat, because I question Pat Riley's real competence. He more or less got lucky with Dwyane Wade being best friends with James and Bosh, so I am hesitant to give him all the credit for that.
You guys know Riley's career with the Heat started before LeBron and Bosh got there, right?
He started with them in '95, the Heat had just won 32 games, basically still an expansion team with only 1 winning season in their 7 years of existence (and that was barely a winning season with only 42 wins). Made trades to get Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway, and had a 62 win team in his 2nd season after taking over a 32 win team. He quickly built a team that was considered a contender for the next 5 years (4 first place Atlantic finishes, top 2 team in Eastern conference, usually only behind Jordan's Bulls).
When that team finally broke down, they had only 2 losing seasons (and one decent season when Riley drafted Wade) before trading for Shaq and trading/signing for several other veterans, becoming a contender again, and winning the whole thing in 2006.
Then that team broke down, the Heat had one terrible season, and 2 decent ones, then rebuilt again into a contender.
So in 17 years, he's built 3 different, legitimate contending teams with the Heat, and you guys won't give him credit because the creation of one of those teams might have been orchestrated by somebody else (he just lucked into all that cap room too I suppose)?
Riley has traded/signed/drafted several key players before LeBron came to town that worked well for the Heat:
Alonzo Mourning
Tim Hardaway
Chris Gatling
Dan Majerle
P.J. Brown
Jamal Mashburn
Voshon Lenard
Eddie Jones
Anthony Mason
Brian Grant
Lamar Odom
Antoine Walker
James Posey
Jason Williams
Gary Payton
Shaquille O'Neal
Jason Kapono
Caron Butler
Dwyane Wade
Udonis Haslem
How many bad signings/trades has Riley made since '95? How come the time it takes them to rebuild is always so short? Miami, while a nice city, was never really a top player destination until LeBron decided to go there. Their only significant signing was Juwan Howard in '96, and that was voided by the league. Players weren't demanding trades to Miami, like Carmelo, Paul, and Dwight have been demanding to go to certain cities. Riley is a pretty good GM.