Lakers unveil statue of Pat Riley, the coaching mastermind of their 1980s Showtime era

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Lakers have unveiled a statue of Pat Riley outside their downtown arena to honor the head coach who masterminded their Showtime championship era.

Riley was in attendance Sunday when the Lakers revealed the 8-foot bronze likeness of the Hall of Fame coach in one of his famed Giorgio Armani suits. The statue stands in Star Plaza between statues of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, the two pillars of the Lakers' five championships in the 1980s.

Riley was an assistant for that first title before leading the Lakers to the next four, reaching seven NBA Finals in his nine years as their head coach. Riley had never been a head coach before owner Jerry Buss installed the former Lakers player in 1981, but he went on to become one of the greats in his profession.

“The time has gone so fast,” Riley said. “I feel like everything I’ve ever done, I’ve been blessed. I was surrounded by greatness.”

The 80-year-old Riley went on to major successes in New York and Miami, where he still serves as the Heat's president. But Riley proudly recognizes his NBA roots are in Los Angeles, where he remains a city icon after spending two decades with the Lakers as a player, a broadcaster and coach. He won six total championship rings in purple and gold.

Abdul-Jabbar and Johnson lauded Riley during the unveiling ceremony, with Abdul-Jabbar reminiscing about a relationship that goes all the way back to their high school days in New York.

“When they say, ‘City of champions,’ we can look at you as one of the architects of that slogan,” Johnson said to Riley. “You've done more for us than we could ever thank you for.”

Riley also shared the stage with Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, Heat great Dwyane Wade and actor Michael Douglas, a longtime friend who adopted Riley’s signature ’80s look for his Academy Award-winning role as banker Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” Douglas laughingly told the story of eagerly waiting for Moroccan customs officials to release his Betamax tapes of the Lakers' NBA Finals games while the actor was trying to avoid spoilers on set shooting “The Jewel of the Nile.”

“Pat really was a guardian angel for this franchise,” Jeanie Buss said. “The epitome of an era, the stylish leader of the Showtime Lakers, Pat did it all with flair and swagger.”

Many other basketball greats who played for Riley watched from the crowd, including James Worthy, Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon, Bob McAdoo, A.C. Green, Kurt Rambis, Byron Scott and Alonzo Mourning.

The inscription on the base of the statue is advice that Riley attributes to his father: “There will come a time when you are challenged, and when that time comes, you must plant your feet. You must stand firm. You must make a point. About who you are, what you do, and where you come from. When that time comes, you do it.”

Riley was awash in memories during his latest return to Los Angeles. He told stories of joining the Lakers as a player after being cut by Portland, winning a ring in 1972 and eventually entering the broadcast booth alongside Chick Hearn, who encouraged him to do the New York Times crossword puzzle each morning to improve his vocabulary.

Riley became an assistant coach and eventually got the head job — and the NBA was never the same. The coach freed Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar to lead the up-tempo, flashy style known as Showtime, and they rolled to championships in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988.

Riley's statue is the eighth honoring the Lakers to be installed in Star Plaza, joining Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal — who sent a video praising his former coach in Miami — and Hearn.

“That statue is loaded up with all of us who took that magical journey together,” Riley said.

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A statue of former Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley is unveiled outside the Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Greg Beacham)

A statue of former Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley is unveiled outside the Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Greg Beacham)

GENEVA (AP) — The daughter of a former president of Uzbekistan was facing a trial in absentia starting Monday in Switzerland in connection with alleged bribery and money laundering involving assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of former President Islam Karimov, is behind bars in Uzbekistan as the trial opens in a Swiss federal criminal court in the southern city of Bellinzona. It's set to run through May 22.

Swiss prosecutors say Karimova developed and ran a crime ring known as “The Office” that involved several dozen people and multiple companies. She is accused of depositing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of funds “of criminal origin” in Switzerland and abroad, and arranging for safe deposit boxes for the deposit of cash, jewelry and other valuables of criminal origin, the prosecutors said.

Grégoire Mangeat, one of her defense lawyers, said in an email that Karimova was being prevented from leaving the “prison colony” where she has been detained in Uzbekistan to attend the trial.

“We will seek the full and complete acquittal of Gulnara Karimova,” he said.

Uzbek news outlet Podrobno described Karimova’s presence in the Swiss courtroom as “virtually impossible” as the 53-year-old was already serving her sentence in Uzbekistan.

It said that Karimova had been moved to a women’s penal colony in Uzbekistan’s Zangiota region, on the outskirts of the capital, Tashkent, in early 2025.

Karimova was indicted three years ago in Switzerland along with a former director-general of the Uzbek subsidiary of a Russian telecommunications company for crimes allegedly committed between 2005 and 2013.

That was during her father's tenure. He led the Central Asian country for over a quarter-century until his death in 2016. Karimova had previously worked in Geneva in connection with the United Nations, and benefited from diplomatic immunity.

Karimova has faced a series of trials after a first conviction in Uzbekistan eight years ago, and is serving a 13-year sentence for organizing a criminal group, extortion and embezzlement.

In November 2024, Swiss prosecutors announced the indictment of Swiss private bank Lombard Odier and a former employee on allegations they had a “decisive role in concealing the proceeds of the criminal activities of ‘The Office.’”

Lombard Odier, in an email, said the prosecutor doesn't allege that the bank knowingly or intentionally engaged in money laundering, “but rather raises claims relating to alleged organizational shortcomings in prevention measures, which the bank firmly contests and will defend in court.”

FILE - Gulnara Karimova arrives for the screening of the film "The Exodus - Burnt By The Sun 2", at the 63rd international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, on May 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)