"LeBron James left for chocolate chip cookies" - Stephen A. Smith delivers scorching takedown of Pat Riley's Heat legacy

The Miami Heat continue to struggle.

They've now dropped nine games in a row, and they're 29-40 and currently sitting at No. 10 in the Eastern Conference.

They could still make the playoffs as a Play-In Tournament team, but even if that's the case, they don't look like the kind of team that could make some noise in the first round.

That's why Stephen A. Smith believes it's time for a change in the front office. On Thursday's edition of "First Take," the ESPN anchor called out Pat Riley over Dwyane Wade's story about him taking away LeBron James' cookies:

"Miami is a lovely place, it truly is," Smith said. "And there's a lot of people that would love to come to Miami, one would think. But LeBron departed from there, Kevin Durant didn't come there, Damian Lillard couldn't get there, and then, you make a colossal mistake (...). You're Pat Riley, and your legacy is going to be, even though LeBron was leaving anyways, you know what people are going to say: LeBron James left for chocolate chip cookies.”

Wade told a story about how LeBron got mad when Pat Riley banned the players from getting cookies during flights. James was quite fond of those cookies, but more than that, Wade thought there was just too much micromanaging at that point.

Dan Le Batard clears the air on the cookie story

However, it now seems like Wade didn't get his facts right. Per Heat insider Dan Le Batard, the incident was centered around ice cream, not cookies, and it wasn't even Pat Riley's doing:

"It was ice cream," Le Batard said. "It was not cookies. Pat wasn’t the coach, he didn’t travel. Doesn’t know what the food is on the flight. It was the nutritionist, not Pat. And this one, this one. Everyone knows, this is what I was told. Everyone knows that Pat would have eaten those cookies himself because he loves chocolate chip cookies. So the story just has no truth to it.”

Whatever the case, the Heat have struggled to find and retain talent in recent years, and Riley's ways might be a little outdated.

He's had an incredible run in charge of the organization, and no one can take anything away from him. Still, the game is evolving, and as such, the team might also need to go in a different direction to get back to relevance.