Pat Riley is the true man behind Cookie Monster’s costume.
Dwyane Wade told a wild story on the “Underground Lounge” podcast about former Heat teammate LeBron James throwing a fit over Pat Riley taking away his cookies on the team plane.
It was a moment that gave Wade pause about James’ future in Miami.
“This was the primary moment that I had an inkling that LeBron might not be back,” Wade said. “One thing you don’t do is f–k with LeBron’s cookies. That is serious. Like, he loves chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies and ice cream, he loves.
“So when he gets on the plane, LeBron walks on the plane with two bags of food. One bag is all cookies, and the [other] bag is what his chef has prepared for him to eat because he eats a certain way. He don’t eat what’s on the plane… So we get on the plane, and we play cards on the front of the plane, and in some unspecified time in the future, LeBron’s gonna be like, ‘Hey, bring me those cookies.’ And at some point, he said, ‘Hey, where are my cookies?’ And this at some point, that they had to come back up and whisper in his ear and tell him that there have been no more cookies on the plane.”
That’s when things took a turn.
“That motherf–ker sat back away from the sport. He pushed them cards back he sat there quietly, his head like this [nodding]. He didn’t play cards no more. It’s serious. It was an excessive amount of micromanaging at that time,” Wade said. “You’re talking a few team who’s 4 Finals in a row. You don’t must micromanage us. I felt that ‘Riles’ went a bit of too far along with his micromanaging at points like that. He’s a grown man; you don’t take the cookies away from him.”
James famously announced his intention to affix the Heat within the infamous “The Decision,” which aired on ESPN on July 8, 2010, declaring he was taking his “talents to South Beach” — a selection met with much vitriol, especially from Cavaliers fans.
The Heat, with James, Wade and Chris Bosh, went to 4 consecutive NBA Finals from 2011-14, winning all of it in ’12 and ’13.
In 2014, James opted to return to Cleveland, a call met with resistance from Riley, who stopped just wanting invoking Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who had previously called the NBA star “Benedict Arnold” when he left the franchise years before.
James went on to win one other title with Cleveland in 2016 and added a fourth with the Lakers in 2020, while the Heat haven’t been in a position to recover from the hump.
On the 2025 NBA trade deadline, star forward Jimmy Butler forced a trade out of Miami, and in a final meeting with Butler, Riley reportedly was in tears after attempting to persuade the six-time NBA All-Star to stick with the Heat — though he did poke fun at his tumultuous Heat beef.
When picking up a coffee at his Miami shop, Butler made an example of certainly one of his employees.
“I gave you a compliment. That’s what bosses do,” he said with a smile. “We construct you up, we don’t break you down.”
Butler was then traded to the Warriors and appears rejuvenated, as Golden State has a 6-1 record for the reason that trade.
