On June 17, 1986, the Boston Celtics gleefully used their second overall pick in the college draft to select Len Bias, a six-foot-eight, 210-pound forward from Maryland who was advertised as the second coming of Michael Jordan. Bias would be the franchise player who would lead the Celtics back to the Russellian glory days of the mid-1950s to the late ’60s.
Two days later, Bias was dead of a cocaine overdose.
It was a grievous tragedy for the young man and his family, a setback for the future hopes of the Celtics, and another grim reminder that cocaine continued to be a huge problem for the NBA.
Barely two weeks later, Richardson ignored the same restraining order that ultimately had resulted in his banishment from the NBA by once more pounding on the front door of his wife’s house. After being spotted by the police, he escaped into some adjacent woods. That afternoon he was found sleeping in his wife’s Mercedes-Benz convertible—with the motor running—behind a real-estate office in nearby Allendale. When his wife, Leah, came to the police station to sign a complaint, Richardson threatened her verbally and physically.
In the opinion of Frank Parenti, Allendale’s police chief, “He was on something. He’s a very sick boy. He’s thin, his face was drawn, and he looks terrible.”
Richardson was booked for assault and driving with a revoked license. His date in court was set for August 26, and his bail of $2,500 was posted by his current girlfriend, Brenda Dyla.
After this latest incident, Richardson had an epiphany. “It finally came to me that all I had left was my love for the game of basketball,” he said. “Period. So that’s where I started from.”
When a pay-for-play team in Israel expressed an interest in Richardson, his wife rescinded her complaint, and at her prompting, an Allendale judge likewise agreed to drop all criminal charges against Micheal Ray. This marked the beginning of reconciliation between Richardson and Leah. Accordingly, on October 28, 1986, Richardson was permitted to sign a $60,000 contract to play with Hapoel Ramat Gan, a declining team that was desperate to compete against the reigning Israeli champions, Maccabi Tel Aviv. Avraham Hemo was the coach and manager of Hapoel, and as an ex-police officer he believed that Richardson could restart his career under his tight supervision.
At the time, the level of competition in Israel was mediocre at best and poor at worst. Neal Walk was a six-foot-ten center who had played in the NBA for eight years—with Phoenix, New Orleans, and New York. While with the Suns in the 1972–73 season, he had averaged 20.2 points, 12.4 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game. Where he once was a banger, Walk had become a vegetarian, shed 30 pounds, and, weighing 220, had transformed into a finesse player. After his NBA career ended in 1977, Walk played several productive seasons in Italy before taking his game to Israel from 1983 to 1984.
“I enjoyed the people,” Walk says, “the history, and the always willing sabra women. But the level of play was pretty bad. To keep myself from getting bored, I concentrated on passing and rebounding. The only shots I looked to take were bank shots with my off hand. Even so, I soon lost interest, and my competitive chops atrophied to the point where, when I returned to the States and tried to make a comeback with the Utah Jazz, I had forgotten how to play at an NBA level and was cut early in training camp.”
At first, Richardson had several reasons to like being in Israel. “Despite the suicide bombings and other stuff,” said Richardson, “I wasn’t afraid coming to Israel because I had visited the country before when the Nets played some exhibition games there. All I wanted was a chance to keep on playing basketball.”
Once there, Richardson was impressed by the spirit of the Israelis, their food, the “beautiful women,” and the grand opening of the Cinerama, “a wild club.” He was also impressed with the Israeli’s appreciation of James Brown, whom Richardson saw as presenting the collective spirit of his own people. Perhaps, Micheal Ray, thought, the Israelis might also embrace him.
If Richardson was not afraid to go to Israel, several important politicians were ostensibly afraid of him. Micha Reiser, a Kneset member of the conservative Likud party, objected to “a drug-addicted American player” coming to Israel. His objection was seconded by Pinhas Goldstein, the head of the country’s sport and education committee, who attacked Richardson as being a “non-educational figure.” The specter of Richardson’s playing with Hopoel was deemed by Miki Berkovic, the star of Maccabia Tel Aviv, as “a shameful disgrace.”
On February 25, 1967, the Munich-based Federation of International Basketball Association (FIBA), the sport’s governing body, refused to approve Richardson’s contract with Hapoel. The unspoken reason given, of course, was his history of drug abuse, but the official motivation for the ban was “there was no official document indicating that Richardson was released from an amateur team that he used to play for in Denver.”
Whatever that meant.
“The real reason,” said Richardson, “was that Maccabia Tel Aviv had a strong connection with FIBA and were worried that my playing with Hapoel would be a serious challenge to their dominance. And they had good reason to be afraid of me because if I had played with Hapoel, I believe we would have beaten Maccabia and taken the championship from them.”
Despite the FIBA’s bogus decision and the widespread public slander, Richardson remained in Israel, hoping that somehow the ruling would be overturned. In lieu of playing, Richardson became Avraham Hemo’s assistant coach, but his initial experience on the bench was frustrating. “The players were always bitching and screaming.”
After the six-month Israeli season ended, Richardson returned home and focused on repairing his relationship with Leah. “She was very upset with me,” he said, “which is only human. But she also loved me, and cared about me. I guess it’s because she knows what kind of person I am when I’m not doing drugs.”
Come spring, Richardson looked for another chance to play pro ball, this time in the States—and he had an extensive alphabet of minor leagues to choose from:
ACPBL—Atlantic Coast Professional Basketball League
CBA—Continental Basketball Association
CPBL—Canadian Professional Basketball League
EBL—Eastern Basketball Alliance
GBA—Global Basketball League
IBA—Independent Basketball Association
IBEL—Iowa Basketball Exposure League
IBL—International Basketball League
KBDL—Kentucky Basketball Developmental League
MEBL—Metro-East Basketball League
NABL—National Athletic Basketball League
NRL—National Rookie League
TRBL—Tobacco Road Basketball League
USBL—United States Basketball League
WBK—World Basketball League
WCPBL—West Coast Professional Basketball League
The most comparatively stable of these shaky organizations was the United States Basketball League (USBL) and the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). The USBL was the brainchild of a venture capitalist named Daniel Meisenheimer III, who in 1985 envisioned a league that played from May to July, stretched from coast to coast, and would eventually be a farm system for NBA ballclubs. His dream included fifty teams grouped in eight divisions with players’ salaries ranging from $300 to $1,000 per week. Joining Meisenheimer at the press conference announcing the USBL’s formation were Walt Frazier and Dick Barnett, who were introduced as the franchise owners in Atlanta and White Plains, New York. Also on hand was Earl Monroe, slated to be the USBL’s first commissioner. When that initial season commenced, neither Frazier nor Barnett were involved. Monroe was soon replaced by Meisenheimer himself, and only seven franchises answered the opening bell. Altogether, these charter franchises lost a total of $1.2 million
By the time Richardson signed with the Long Island Knights, the eight surviving teams had each previously played a thirty-game season, but the USBL continued to be strictly a fly-by-night organization. During its twenty-two-year lifespan (1985–2007), the USBL featured teams in fifty-six cities—from Atlantic City to Dodge City, from Hoboken to Brooklyn—with none of them ever showing a profit. Indeed, the combination of shaky ownership, in-and-out franchises, and tiny crowds forced the league to cancel its 1989 season. Year by year, the lineup of teams dramatically shrank so that in the league’s final two seasons, all of the surviving franchises were situated in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.
Not even the appearance of several washed-up former NBA players—most notable among these were World B. Free, Manute Bol, and Spud Webb—could ever make the USBL a viable operation. The impossibility of any one team developing a loyal corps of fans was demonstrated during the 2000 season, when the USBL’s eleven ballclubs combined to execute more than 200 trades involving 450 players.
One particular player did, however, generate considerable publicity for the USBL. This was Nancy Lieberman who joined Springfield Fame in 1986. The first woman to play in a men’s pro league, Lieberman had been a member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic women’s team in 1976 and was still considered to be the best female hooper in the known world. However, Lady Magic’s on-court impact was minimal as she averaged a mere two points in twenty-one games. Moreover, despite the media hype the league-wide attendance was just over 825 per game.
Several of the USBL’s coaches, though, would eventually graduate into NBA employment. Eric Musselman, for example, moved from the USBL to coach the Golden State Warriors and then the Sacramento Kings. Another NBA-bound coach was Henry Bibby, who despite a somewhat checkered past ultimately became a valuable assistant coach with several NBA teams.
Indeed, in Bibby’s previous incarnation as coach of the CBA’s Tulsa Zone, he was solely responsible for having the finest hotel in Albany, New York, close its doors to any and all CBA teams. This happened as a result of Bibby’s propositioning his waitress in the Albany Hilton’s restaurant, not knowing that she was the daughter of the city’s archbishop. In fact, Bibby used to brag about his routine come-ons: “If I ask ten women to sleep with me, or twenty or more, one of them is bound to agree.”
But womanizing wasn’t Bibby’s only in-season recreation: Like the NBA, the CBA conducted random pregame drug tests with certain players and coaches chosen by lot and letting the two coaches decide which one of them would be tested. Prior to one unexpected drug test, Bibby had begged a rival coach (which happened to be me!) to volunteer, citing his participation in a free-for-all party the night before. It was only fitting then that Bibby was destined to become one of Micheal Ray’s USBL coaches.
Richardson’s first team, the Long Island Knights, was coached by an ex-Knick, Dean Meminger. This was Dean the Dream’s second coaching gig, the first being with the CBA’s Albany Patroons in that team’s inaugural season of 1982–83. At the time, Meminger was only thirty-four years old and five years removed from his last NBA campaign. During the Patroons’ practices and games, Meminger would constantly ridicule his players, claiming that he was still better than any of them. But, after the Patroons began the season with a dismal record of 8-15, Meminger was fired. His temporary replacement was one of the players, Sam Worthen, who led the team to a pair of losses before a more permanent coach was hired.
Enter Phil Jackson, who had recently retired as a player and assistant coach with the New Jersey Nets and had retreated to his home in Montana where he was operating a local health club.
Before Meminger left town, he made a last request to be allowed to try out for the team. Phil agreed and watched a painful scrimmage wherein the surviving players unmercifully beat on their ex-coach.
Jackson finished the season at 8-11 and won the CBA championship in 1983–84. After three more seasons in the CBA, Jackson moved on to Chicago, Los Angeles, and the Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, Richardson was happy to be making $10,000 for the short USBL season and was even happier to routinely pass the twice-a-week urinalysis monitored by a private addiction treatment center in New York. “Playing in this league is something I have to do,” he said, “so I just go out and do it. This experience will serve its purpose for me.” He also believed that once his two-year suspension was over, some NBA team would give him another opportunity to play in what the players called “The League.” “If you can play, somebody will take a chance.” And, indeed, he could still play, averaging 28 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists for the Knights and drawing raves from opposing players and coaches.
But no praise came from Meminger, who objected to Richardson’s taking too many shots and habitually aborting the team’s offensive patterns to freelance. On June 16 the Knights released Richardson, charging that he was disruptive to the team and disrespectful to Meminger. Richardson responded by claiming that the Knights bounced paychecks and ran an unprofessional organization. (Meminger died in 2013, having fought a losing battle with hard drugs.)
Two days later, Richardson was signed by the Jersey Jammers and Henry Bibby was his latest coach. After two weeks, Bibby said this about his new player: “I’m happy with his attitude. Wherever he goes in the NBA, he’ll have to fit into a structured system. He has shown me he’s trying to do that here.”
Indeed, “structure” was, and is, the name of the game in the NBA.
There are two categories of offense: read offense and execution offense. The former is based on the principle that the defense cannot deny possession to the four players who do not have the ball. Trying to overplay all four invariably leads to backdoor cuts, lob passes, and uncontested layups. So, a read offense begins with a pass to whichever player is in position to receive a pass. This offense requires savvy players, impeccable coordination, total unselfishness, and stable rosters—situations which are simply not available to minor-league teams. The triangle offense designed by Phil Jackson and Tex Winter is the classic, and most successful, manifestation of a read offense.
In an execution offense, players have assigned routes in conjunction with each other—picks, curls, pops, fades, basket cuts, reversal passes—all within a certain structure. This might be a one-two-two alignment, or a one-three-one, etcetera. The goals here are many: to take advantage of lopsided mismatches, to create sufficient space for a player to take his opponent one on one so that double teaming by the defense becomes risky, to get the ball to a specific player in his most effective spots, to maintain sufficient floor balance so as to have enough retreating manpower to defend against fast breaks—and, above all, to get good shots.
The trouble is that in minor-league basketball virtually every player (rightly) believes that most NBA scouts are unduly impressed with individual statistics. So, the prevailing attitude on offense is to shoot first and never ask questions—which is why coaching at this level is so difficult and so frustrating. So, then, if Richardson’s first two weeks under Bibby showed at least a modicum of self-control, Micheal Ray would inevitably be hard pressed to continue his acceptance of whatever structure that his latest coach demanded.
But as the season progressed, Richardson became disenchanted with the all-offense-no-defense game plans that most USBL teams employed, also with the cheap hotels, the lack of seriousness manifested by most of the other NBA veteran players, and the paltry crowds. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to make this my career,” he moaned. “I’m gonna put in my ten weeks, say thank you very much, and never see this again.”
Despite Richardson’s averaging 25.5 points, 7.3 assists, and 2.3 steals, the Jammers were 13-17 and losers in a one-game playoff appearance.
Back home in New Jersey, Micheal Ray and Leah effected a complete reconciliation even as he investigated his next move. If he wanted to stay in the States, Richardson decided that his only viable option was to follow the lead of John Drew and play in the Continental Basketball Association.
The first incarnation of the CBA occurred on April 23, 1946 (six weeks before the formation of the Basketball Association of America [BAA], the forerunner of the NBA), when the Eastern Professional Basketball League was chartered. Commonly called the “Eastern League” (EL), the six original franchises included the Wilkes-Barre Barons, the Lancaster Red Roses, the Reading Keys, the Allentown Rockets, the Hazelton Mountaineers, and the Pottsville Pros.
All of the franchises, and virtually all of the players, were located in Pennsylvania, and the best players earned $7,500 for the season—which was equivalent to the salaries paid by the established (but soon to be extinct) National Basketball League and the fledgling BAA.
The schedule wasn’t balanced, with Lancaster playing thirty games, Allentown playing twenty-six, and the others either twenty-seven or twenty-eight. The games were played mostly on Saturday and Sunday nights, and players from out of town would usually travel with seven or eight guys packed into somebody’s car. The teams played mostly in high-school and junior-high school gyms, and seven hundred fans were a big turnout. The officials were usually local high-school refs, and it was extremely rare for a team to win a game on the road.
For the next few years, the Eastern League played musical franchises with an increasing number of teams being sponsored by local businesses, such as the Berwick Carbuilders, the Lebanon Seltzers, and the Pottsville Packers. The rosters were still mainly populated with local heroes, including Philadelphians like Jack Ramsey and Jack McClosky, who both went on to be successful coaches in the NBA.
In 1948 the BAA merged with the National Basketball League to form the NBA, which reduced the total number of pro teams and likewise cut the available jobs. One result was that a number of elite players from New Jersey and New York were happy to earn anywhere from one hundred to three hundred dollars for a weekend’s work with some Eastern League team of the moment.
Hubie Brown averaged 13.8 points while playing in eight games for the Rochester Zenith in the Eastern League’s 1958–59 season. “Back then,” Brown says, “there were only eight teams in the newly created NBA and only ten players on each team. That adds up to only eighty players. Guys played in the Eastern League because there was no place else for them to play, and it was a hell of a league. Everybody played a cerebral kind of game with a lot of motion. It was a form of passing game before anybody gave it a name. A lot of the old guys from the Northeast called it Jew basketball. I’m telling you the truth here, that many of the guys in the Eastern League would be NBA All-Stars if they played today.”
The league finally hit the jackpot two years after the college betting scandals erupted in 1951 when it admitted convicted point shavers who had been banned by the NBA. The likes of Floyd Layne and Ed Roman from City College of New York’s infamous 1950 squad that won both the NIT and NCAA, Sherman White of Long Island University, and Ralph Beard and Alex Groza of Kentucky became widely ballyhooed gate attractions. Jack Molinas, a certified All-Star who was booted from the NBA in 1954 for wagering on his team (the Fort Wayne Pistons) to win certain games, was another Eastern League headliner. Several suspected but never convicted dumpers—Bob Zawoluk from St. John’s, Bill Spivey from Kentucky—were other attractive curios.
Hubie Brown adds that “The majority of the guys who became great officials in the NBA all learned how to referee in the Eastern League. I’m talking about guys like Earl Strom, Jake O’Donnell, and Mendy Rudolph, whose father by the way was president of the league. One of the early Eastern League refs was Tommy Lasorda, who later traded in his whistle for a baseball and wound up managing the Los Angeles Dodgers.”
Through the years, the Eastern League also featured several over-the-hill players or still-developing youngsters, the most notable being M. L. Carr, Sihugo Green, Art Heyman, Cleo Hill, Bob Love, Mike Riordan, Ray Scott, Paul Silas, Bob Weiss, and Harthorne Wingo.
Meanwhile, the EL had been perpetually hopeful of developing some sort of working relationship with the NBA. But the EL’s admittance of so many point shavers in the early 1950s made this impossible. However, by the late 1960s all of the tainted players had retired, and there were some vague preliminary discussions aimed at the NBA’s partially subsidizing the EL in return for an as yet unresolved player-development arrangement.
But even this tenuous beginning collapsed in 1974, when the NBA Players Association took notice of the fate of John Brisker, a double-digit scorer for the Seattle SuperSonics, whose lack of off- and on-court discipline irked his coach, Bill Russell. Strictly as a punitive measure, Russell sent Brisker to the Eastern League, where in a handful of games, he averaged more than fifty points. To the Players Association, the EL was henceforth deemed to be a detention hall for unruly players and the interleague negotiations were dead.
Another reason why the NBA shunned the EL was the most risqué trade in the history of professional sports. It seems that the general manager of Team A made an agreement with the general manager of Team B to transfer the rights of a certain player from A to B. However, since Team B had no cash to spare and the EL had no college draft at the time, other arrangements had to be made.
After much dickering the two teams finally agreed to the following terms: the secretary of A’s general manager would get together with B’s general manager to deliver a blow job at a later date.
One is left to wonder exactly how the transaction was officially recorded.
Then there was the time when a player dissatisfied with his lack of playing time tried to drown his coach in a toilet bowl. Not to forget the similarly discontented player who grabbed his coach’s necktie and hoisted him off the ground. Or the coach (Herb Brown) who protested a ref’s call (Ken Mauer) by grabbing his whistle lanyard and twisting it until the ref’s face turned blue. (It should be noted that neither the other ref, the two coaches, nor the players made a move to come to Mauer’s aid.)
Through the years instability remained the most significant constant in the EL: during seventeen of the league’s first twenty-one years, at least one team folded or relocated either during or after the season. In 1967 the American Basketball Association came into being and most of the Eastern League’s best players eagerly jumped to the new organization, lured by pricey contracts that the EL’s teams couldn’t come close to matching. At the start of the 1974–75 season, the EL was down to four teams—Hazelton, Allentown, Scranton, and Cherry Hill.
Then in 1976, four American Basketball Association teams joined the NBA, and the remaining five ABA franchises ceased operations. Now there was a return migration of high-quality players back into the Eastern League. A year later, franchises could be purchased for $8,000, and the EL had franchises variously situated in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, plus a franchise in Anchorage, Alaska.
The 1977–78 season provided a milestone for the Eastern League. That’s when three of its players signed with NBA teams: Harthorne Wingo with New York, Charlie Criss with Philadelphia, and Brad Davis with the Lakers. At the end of that same season, another minor league—the Western Basketball Association—folded, and in anticipation of adding more quality players and far-ranging franchises, the owners of the holdover EL teams convened on August 26, 1978, in Quincy, Massachusetts, to rename their league the Continental Basketball Association and prepare for their suddenly bright future.
Jim Drucker’s father, Norm, had been a longtime NBA referee, but Jim was more interested in sports administration. Drucker narrates the strange circumstances that made him the CBA’s first-ever commissioner: “The ten owners met with two candidates—me and Steve Kaufman, who’s now a high-powered agent operating out of Malibu—in a somewhat sleazy hotel in the worst section of Quincy. The owners didn’t want to spring for a rented meeting room, so we gathered in a cocktail lounge where the arguments soon became loud and nasty. Also, there seemed to be an unusual number of flashy but well-used women floating around. During a break in the negotiations, I agreed to meet privately with one of the owners who supported me over Kaufman, but when we entered his room we found a man and a woman fucking in his bed. Anyway, I was confirmed by a vote of six to four. Thirty minutes after we all checked out of the hotel the next morning, the joint was raided by the local police. Turned out the hotel was really a whorehouse.”
Prior to the forthcoming 1978–79 season, the hiring of Drucker paid immediate dividends when he negotiated a million-dollar contract with the NBA for “referee development.” Most of the money was used to finance the league office in Drucker’s hometown of Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, with the CBA’s franchises each receiving about $75,000. Among the current and/or most recent crop of NBA refs who got their start in the CBA are Derrick Stafford, Bill Spooner, Tony Brothers, Eddie F. Rush, David Jones, Michael Smith, Tom Washington, Gary Zielinski, Mike Callahan, Ken Mauer, Bob Delany, Ron Garetson, Steve Javie, Monty McCutchen, Leon Wood, and Ronnie Nunn.
“The CBA was never about the players, the coaches, nor the fans,” said Garetson. “The only reason why the league existed was to provide a proving ground for referees.”
No wonder the inmates referred to the CBA as the Crazy Basketball Association.
Through a complicated procedure that centered on his most recent NBA team being the New Jersey Nets, the CBA’s rights to Micheal Ray Richardson belonged to the Albany Patroons, the league’s showcase franchise. For Steve Warshaw, the general manager for the Rockford Lightning, Richardson’s history of drug abuse would definitely not have disqualified him from playing for Albany. “One of the purposes of the CBA,” said Warshaw, “is to rehabilitate guys and get them back into the NBA. Since the average annual salary for a CBA player is a little more than $6,000, we like to think players in our league can’t afford drugs.”
However, if only five or six players got coked out of the CBA every year, the quasi-official drug of the league was marijuana.
Here’s what one veteran CBA coach emphasized to his players during their initial team-wide meeting: “The CBA has zero tolerance for coke. One positive test and you’re out for good. That means you’ll never play in the NBA or over the waters. But the drugs tests here do not test for pot. So, stay away from coke no matter what the circumstances. If you must get high, smoke a joint, but only on off-days or after games. And here’s a tip for smoking pot on the road . . . Stuff a wet towel under and above the door to keep the smoke from leaking into the hall. And keep the noise down so the desk clerk won’t call the cops. If pot is semi-legal in the CBA, it’s still a crime in the real world.”
This coach’s players greatly appreciated his pragmatism and his honesty. From that point on, there was a bond of trust between him and the most mature of his players.
For the 1987–88 CBA season, the Albany Patroons were coached by Bill Musselman, who had already coached the Tampa Bay–Rapid City Thrillers to three consecutive CBA championships. The fiery Musselman had a history nearly as dramatic and controversial as Richardson’s.
Musselman had been a three-sport hero at Wooster High School in Wooster, Ohio. From there he went to Wittenberg College, where he became the second-leading career scorer in the school’s basketball history. His coaching career had a modest beginning—leading Kent State University High School to a 14-5 record in 1963. Then came a six-year tenure at Ashland University and an overall record of 109-20.
Even then, Musselman approached the game with a ferociously competitive attitude. He relentlessly drove his players to reach perfection and ruthlessly attacked their every mistake. Winning justified any tactic. Channeling Vince Lombardi, Musselman’s mantra was “Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat.”
This attitude even applied to his relationship with his son, Eric. “We used to play one-on-one while I was growing up,” said Eric, “and Dad always came right at me, playing as hard as if his life was at stake. And he kept on beating me until one day when I was in the ninth grade. After that game, he didn’t speak to me for a few days, and we never played one-on-one again.”
From Ashland, Musselman moved into the big time in 1971 when he was named the head coach of the University of Minnesota. There, his intensity only increased. He placed a sign bearing his motto over the entrance to the players’ showers, and his pregame speeches were designed to drive his players into a frenzy. Despite leading Minnesota to its first Big Ten championship in fifty-three years, earning appearances in the NCAA and NIT postseason playoffs, and finishing his four-year tenure with a 63-32 record, Musselman’s career was besmirched by the events of one particular ball game.
In the locker room prior to a February 6, 1972, showdown against Ohio State University in Minnesota, Musselman primed his players by showing them World War II battle scenes—huge guns blasting away from navy destroyers, bombs falling and exploding, machine gun fire, grenades being tossed. As a result, his players were frothing at their mouths, ready to do or die. Despite Minnesota’s inspired hustle and desire, the Buckeyes led 50–44 with only thirty-six seconds left in the game. That’s when Luke Witte, OSU’s All-American center, was driving to the hoop headed for an apparently unopposed layup. Suddenly, Witte was body slammed and staggered by Clyde Turner, punched in the side of his head by Corky Taylor, and knocked to the floor. But the vicious assault continued when Ron Behagen began to stomp on Witte’s face and neck. Next, Corky Taylor approached the fallen Witte and extended a hand, ostensibly to help the big man to his feet. But just as Witte was nearly erect, Taylor thrust a knee into his groin. Two other Buckeyes were similarly beaten, even as the hometown fans cheered.
Afterward, the Minnesota players blamed Witte: As players from both teams had left the court for the halftime intermission, the Gophers’ Bobby Nix thrust a fist into Witte’s face. Trying to push the fist away, Witte lightly grazed Nix’s face. Corky Taylor claimed that, while he was attempting to help Witte to his feet, the victim spit at him. When slow-motion reruns failed to substantiate Taylor’s claim, Taylor backtracked, saying he thought Witte was going to spit at him.
In any case, Witte had to be carried off the court in a stretcher and spent several days in a hospital. An eye injury he suffered negatively impacted his subsequent NBA career.
One OSU player, Benny Allison, noted that all of the attackers were black, and all of the victims were white. Allison claimed that he and a black teammate were in the middle of the melee but were ignored by the otherwise bloodthirsty Minnesota players.
Several suspensions were handed down by the Big Ten’s administrators, yet Musselman escaped censure. His only response was to shrug and vow that he had nothing to do with the assault.
Indeed, Musselman seemed to be rewarded for the incident when, shortly after the season, he became the coach of the San Diego Sails in the upstart ABA. However, the franchise folded after a 3-8 start, and he moved on to coach the Virginia Squires, only to be fired after compiling a dismal 4-22 record. The next stop was the Western Basketball Association where Musselman led the Reno (Nevada) Bighorns to the finals before losing in the seventh game to the Tucson Gunners. The WBA folded shortly thereafter.
Musselman’s next gig was with the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. At last, he was being recognized as belonging in the highest echelon of coaches. Unfortunately, he was demoted to director of player personnel after the Cavs went 25-46, and that was his position as the 1981–82 season commenced. But the wheel kept spinning—after Chuck Daly posted a 9-32 record, Musselman made a return visit to the Cavs’ command seat. Too bad Cleveland’s roster was top-heavy with guys who were much more interested in partying than in hooping. Musselman resigned after winning only two of twenty-three games.
But the carousel continued to spin, and the next fool’s gold ring that Musselman snatched enabled him to coach the Sarasota Stingers of the CBA. Fired once again with the Stingers at 6-13, Musselman landed a few miles up the coast with the Tampa Bay Thrillers—and it was there that he finally became a genius, winning three consecutive CBA championships from 1985–87.
For sure, he was a terrific coach, but the real secret to his success in the CBA was Musselman’s famous Little Black Book. It contained the contact information of virtually every agent in the business, enabling Musselman to know when blue-chip players would be getting cut from NBA teams or returning from overseas gigs. In the middle of one playoff series against the Phil Jackson–coached Albany Patroons, Musselman unexpectedly added Coby Dietrich to his roster. Dietrich, a six-foot-ten veteran of thirteen seasons in both the ABA and NBA, proved to be the difference. For the seventh game of another playoff series (also against Jackson’s Patroons), Rod Higgins made his first-ever CBA appearance. Higgins, who had already played in seven NBA seasons (and would go on to play in nine more) was at the time a free agent and had just recovered from an injury. With Higgins scoring thirty-seven points, the Thrillers won the deciding game on their way to Musselman’s third CBA title.
Several of Musselman’s players were never great shakes in the NBA but were game changers in the CBA. Guys like Michael Brooks, Scott Brooks, Tony Campbell, Don Collins, Mario Elie, Steve Hayes, Connor Henry, Kevin Loder, Sidney Lowe, Perry Moss, Ed Nealy, Scot Roth, Linton Townes, Ron Valentine, Clinton Wheeler, Freeman Williams, Kevin Williams, and Ray Williams.
In addition to filling his rosters with superior players, Musselman was also an outstanding coach at this level. Even though zone defenses were still verboten, Musselman’s teams played cleverly disguised (and hugely effective) variations of 2-3 zones. His offensive playbook was nearly as hefty as the Manhattan telephone directory. (Flip Saunders, who played for Musselman at Minnesota, was also noteworthy for having a voluminous playbook when he coached in the NBA.) Indeed, Musselman had so many sets and so many plays that opposing CBA coaches had a difficult time preparing a suitable defensive game plan.
Besides his game-time expertise, Musselman sometimes resorted to off-court skullduggery to achieve his goals. The most dramatic of these occurred during a 1985 playoff series against Phil Jackson’s Albany Patroons.
Albany’s leading scorer and zaniest player was Frankie Sanders. At six feet six and two hundred pounds, Frankie could run, jump, create, shoot the lights both on and off, and play terrific defense when he so desired—which was just about never. And if his head had been screwed on correctly, he could and should have had a long and successful career in the NBA.
He’d been an All-American schoolboy in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio, and was recruited by dozens of powerhouse college programs in 1974. That included Bobby Knight, who was then at Indiana and who, according to Frankie, offered him a hundred dollars per week plus a phantom job. In any event, Sanders wound up at Southern University because “they offered [him] the best deal.”
In 1978 Frankie was drafted in the first round (twentieth overall) by San Antonio but lasted only twenty-two games with the Spurs. In almost 12 minutes per game, he shot 39.5 and averaged 6.0 points. “But that’s where,” Frankie says, “I learned about white drugs and white women.”
Musselman’s Thrillers had cruised a 144–129 win to open the series in Tampa Bay, but game two was a dogfight. Late in the fourth quarter Frankie intercepted a pass and broke ahead of the field with no defender within twenty feet. However, instead of directly attacking the basket, he swerved to his right so as to pass in front of the Thrillers’ bench. Then Sanders slowed down for just a beat as he approached Musselman—long enough to flip Muss the bird and to say, “Fuck you!” Only then did Frankie resume his journey hoopward and defiantly execute an impressive dunk. Sanders ended up with a game-high thirty points in a 113–100 win for the Patroons. There was a minimum of celebrating for the visitors as they hustled back to the hotel to rest up for a 6:00 a.m. flight to Albany the next morning.
But at around 3:00 a.m., the phone rang in Frankie’s room. It was Musselman.
According to Frankie, this is what Muss said: “What you did to me was an insult of the worst kind. If you ever do anything like that again, you’ll wind up in a hospital.”
According to Musselman, this is what he really said: “Congratulations, Frankie. You played a wonderful game.”
Before the start of game three in Albany, Musselman made a dramatic entrance into the arena—flanked by a brace of no-necked, muscular, mean-eyed, scowling, three-hundred-pound brutes.
When asked by the Albany media to identify his companions, Musselman just shrugged and muttered something vague about his needing protection after being threatened. He refused to provide any particulars.
During the game, Musselman’s two protectors sat just behind the visitors’ bench. And Frankie certainly got the message. Not that Sanders said anything. All he did was play timidly and ineffectively, scoring a season’s low of six points.
The Thrillers won that game and closed out the series in Albany.
According to another CBA coach, yours truly, more than Musselman’s being just a ruthless, scheming monomaniac, he also possessed an admirable sense of fairness—even if it was demonstrated in his own special over-the-top fashion. I was coaching the Savannah Spirits in a game at Tampa Bay. It was a tight game all the way, but late in the fourth quarter, the refs called three dubious charging fouls on my best player, Cedric Henderson, and the Thrillers won on a buzzer-beating shot by the late “Fast” Eddie Jordan. Instead of celebrating his victory, Bill followed the refs off the court to their locker room, screaming that they had “screwed Charley out of the win.” He continued to kick and pound his fists on the closed locker room door, raging for another ten minutes. When I caught up with him and tried to calm him down, he said, “If I can’t win a game fairly, then I’d rather lose.”
Several months later, on November 17, 1987, unannounced and unexpectedly, Micheal Ray Richardson entered the Washington Avenue Armory just as Bill Musselman was about to conduct his Patroons through the last of their preseason practice sessions.
What did Richardson want?
To try out for the team.
“Okay,” said Musselman, “you’ve got twenty minutes to show me you can play basketball or you’re out of here.”
At the time, Tim Layden was on hand, covering the Patroons for the Albany Times-Union. The highly respected Layden later graduated to a long career with Sports Illustrated yet still remembers what transpired during that practice session:
“He was thirty-two and his face was still youthful, but Richardson had been tossed from the NBA nearly two years ago, so he had a noticeable belly. Musselman’s guards were Sidney Lowe and Lowes Moore who had been NBA players, plus Scott Brooks who would soon become an NBA player. But, although Richardson could only play about three minutes at a time before taking a blow, he made these guys look like rec-league players. I mean, Richardson just tore them up. I interviewed Richardson right after his tryout, and he was totally humble and sweet. Musselman signed him to a contract the next morning.”
Putting his name on a Patroons contract, however, was not easily done. That’s because each team in the CBA had a salary cap of $80,000, so the most Albany could pay Richardson was $500 a week. This obstacle was surmounted when Musselman, as was his wont, offered to pay Richardson at least another $500 per week in cash. Because of their considerable investment, the Patroons required Micheal Ray to undergo two random drug tests every week.
Done deal.
Since Musselman had coached the Cleveland Cavaliers and had already won three CBA championships, Richardson believed that playing for him represented his own best chance to get back to the NBA.
So Musselman was the driven, complex perfectionist who would be Micheal Ray Richardson’s latest coach. One thing that Musselman was not, though, was Richardson’s latest father figure.
Richardson and Musselman got along well to start the season, each one understanding how much they needed the other. They even shared some laughs together. During one all too typical endless wait for a flight, Micheal Ray began to give his imitation of some of the things Musselman says about his players during a ball game.
“Lowes Moore, you’re too slow.”
“Micheal Ray, you’re terrible. Get out of here.”
“Scott Brook, will you play some fuckin’ defense?”
“Rowland, that’s your man.”
And, sooner or later, to every player on the team: “I’m going to trade you. You’re out of here.”
Musselman laughed and said, “Naw, that ain’t me.”
Richardson also laughed, saying, “Coach, don’t fool yourself.”
The Patroons zoomed out of the gate winning their first eleven games. Musselman put Richardson in the unusual position of coming off the bench, playing twenty minutes per game at both wing positions. The point guards were Sidney Lowe (who led the team in assists) and Scott Brooks. Tony Campbell was the starting shooting guard, averaging 23.7 points per game until he was called up by the Los Angeles Lakers. At small forward was Derrick Rowland, scoring 19.7 points per game and becoming Micheal Ray’s closest friend on the team. Michael Brooks manned the strong forward slot, scoring at a 14.9 clip before being summoned to play with the Denver Nuggets. In the middle was Scot Roth, whose 19.5 points per game average induced the Utah Jazz to add him to their roster.
Coming off the bench, Richardson averaged 13.9 points, 3.1 assists, and 1.6 steals in 26 minutes per game. Only late in the playoffs, after the NBA gleaned the best players from the roster, was Richardson installed in the starting lineup.
One midseason game in Albany caused Musselman to blow a gasket. The night before, the Rockford Lightning (coached by the author) had lost in La Crosse by 139–90. Yet the Lightning then inflicted a 108–107 defeat on the Patroons—Albany’s first home loss of the season.
After the game in the locker room, Musselman showered his players with hot-wire screaming curses, accusing them of being losers. He then vowed to make wholesale changes in the roster. (Which he did not do.) To the press, Musselman charged that Rockford’s coach had deliberately thrown the game in La Crosse to make Musselman and his players overconfident.
As the season progressed, and the Patroons swept through the league (finishing with a record of 48-6), Richardson began to resent his status as a sub, and his relationship with his coach swiftly deteriorated. A four-time NBA All-Star coming off the bench in the Crazy Basketball Association?
Moreover, Richardson was bored with the inferior level of competition and played hard only in spurts. Even so, Musselman’s main beef was that Richardson’s play was “too flashy.”
While Musselman thought Richardson’s on-court antics were showboating, Micheal Ray was simply having fun.
If Musselman routinely verbally abused his players, he did allow Richardson some slack. During one timeout, Richardson made a suggestion about more effectively defending an opponent who was scoring at will, but Musselman’s response was, “Shut the fuck up! I’m the fucking genius here.”
“Yeah,” said Richardson. “Well, f-fuck you.”
Musselman ignored Richardson’s comeback and plotted his own defensive strategy. The point being that Richardson was the only player Musselman ever coached who was allowed to trade “Fuck you’s” with him.
Even so, Micheal Ray was often the object of Musselman’s absurd mania for noticing the minutest details: the Patroons had just won a game on the road when the phone rang at 3:00 a.m. in the hotel room that Richardson shared with Rowland.
“It’s for you,” said Rowland.
It was Musselman, loudly berating Micheal Ray for something he had seen while investigating the game tape.
“When Rowland scored a jumper at the end of the third quarter,” Musselman fumed, “everybody on the bench applauded. Everybody except you! I’m watching the tape right now! That’s just another example of you being selfish again!”
Flabbergasted, and still half asleep, Richardson said nothing.
Musselman cursed him for a few more minutes, then said this: “Ah! Brooks just scored on a putback and I can see you clapping like everybody else. . . . Okay, you can go back to sleep now.”
Oftentimes, though, Richardson had more aggressive reactions to Musselman’s routine madness.
In the 1971–72 NBA season, the Los Angeles Lakers set a still-surviving record by winning 33 consecutive games. This was a mark that Musselman desperately sought to surpass even though it might be accomplished in the CBA.
The Patroons were riding a 19-game win streak and had a record of 31-3 when they lost to the home-standing Charleston Gunners. After the game, Musselman once again went off on his players. “You’re all fucking losers! Every one of you! Losers! Fucking losers!”
Then he pointed a finger at each of his players, screaming, “What have you ever won? . . . Not a fucking thing!”
One by one, the players hung their heads in sad agreement with Musselman’s charges. Then Musselman pointed to Richardson.
“And you! You’re the biggest loser of them all! Tell me what the fuck you’ve ever won? Nothing! Just like the rest of them!”
Richardson lifted his head, looked into his coach’s eyes, and said, “You’re right. I ain’t never won nothing. Nothing except for four fucking NBA All-Star rings.”
“Ahh,” was all the stymied Musselman could say.
During halftime of another game that Albany was losing, Musselman cursed out his players, then picked up a chair and heaved it across the locker room. Without saying a word, Richardson picked up another chair and threw it to where Musselman’s chair had landed.
Speechless, Musselman could only shake his head. Perhaps, he might have thought, Richardson was even crazier than he was.
On the road, Richardson routinely was the subject of abuse from fans. But in a game in Biloxi against the Mississippi Jets, the wife of Tom Schneeman, the home team’s coach, got into the act. As the teams warmed up before the opening tip, she stood up and repeatedly screamed at Micheal Ray, “Just say yes! Just say yes!”
Richardson successfully resisted the urge to tell her to go fuck herself.
Being in the CBA did little to restrain Richardson from indulging his extracurricular appetites: Brian Frucio was Musselman’s assistant coach, and as the Patroons took the court after the midgame intermission, Frucio would always raise anywhere from one to four fingers. This was a signal to Tim Wilkin, another writer for the Times-Union, as to how many beers Richardson had consumed in the half-time locker room.
Indeed, Richardson was a free spirit who totally resisted Musselman’s tightly disciplined game plan.
During the Eastern Conference playoffs against the Savannah Spirits, Musselman threatened to kick Richardson off the team for habitually freelancing and aborting the Patroons structured offense. But the threat was never carried out because Musselman understood that he couldn’t win his fourth-straight CBA championship without Richardson.
“Fuck it,” said Richardson. “Here I am in the CBA, and I’m going to do what I want to do.”
The Patroons cruised into the best-of-seven-games championship round against the Wyoming Wildcatters. The first game was played in Albany and as the Patroons gathered around their coach just prior to the commencement of an overtime period, Richardson was pissed. He had played only fifteen minutes so far despite scoring eleven points on 5-8 shooting. When Micheal Ray was handed a cup of water, he either dropped it or threw it to the floor in disgust. In any event, some water spilled on Musselman’s clipboard.
After losing the game, Musselman told reporters that he was inclined to boot Richardson off the team before game two was played.
But Richardson was not cut and scored twenty as the Patroons evened the series. Musselman then told Tim Wilkin that Michael Ray had been benched in game one to motivate him for the rest of the series. “And it sure did work,” Musselman smirked.
The series moved to Wyoming, where the Patroons won game three. Up by 2–1, the Patroons looked to gain a stranglehold on the best-of-seven series, and with the Patroons leading by sixteen late in the third quarter, the outcome seemed to be inevitable. Indeed, the early minutes of the fourth quarter were what Tim Layden called “a victory parade.” But Musselman couldn’t stand his players’ showboating.
When Richardson threw a between-the-legs-no-look pass out of bounds, Musselman called a time-out, walked onto the court, and yanked him from the game. With Richardson on the bench, the Wildcatters came back to win the game and even the series.
“After the game,” says Layden, “Richardson came over to me and started cursing Musselman. He said Musselman was crazy and had no reason to humiliate him in front of the two thousand fans at the game. That was no way to treat a human being, Richardson said. So that was the story I wrote.”
After Layden’s story was printed in the next morning’s newspaper, Musselman was hopping mad. But instead of complaining to Layden, he called Tim Wilkin.
“He started screaming to me about what a bad guy Layden was,” says Wilkin. “I don’t know what he wanted me to do about it or what part he thought I had played in the whole thing. But Musselman was off on a screaming, cursing jag. After a while, I put the phone down and went on about my business. About every five minutes, I’d pick up the phone and say, ‘Yeah, Bill. I hear you.’ Then I’d put the phone back down again. This went on for almost an hour. I mean, the poor guy was unhinged.”
With Richardson once again getting minimal playing time, Wyoming won game five. The Patroons returned to Albany having to win the next two games to give Musselman his fourth consecutive CBA championship.
Meanwhile, Richardson kept telling his teammates that, after the season, he would say this to Musselman: “Thank you, Bill, and fuck you!” A promise he never delivered.
With Richardson playing exceedingly well in expanded daylight, Albany did indeed win games six and seven.
However, the very next day, Richardson was the life of the Patroons’ celebratory party. And he and Musselman hugged each other like they were big-time buddies.
“Despite all of their disagreements and clashes,” says Tim Wilkins, “Musselman and Richardson had the same fiercely driven on-court personalities. Off court, too, both were very personable and easygoing. They were a perfect Jekyll-and-Hyde match.”
If Richardson never played another game in the CBA, his connection with the league—and with the Albany Patroons—would eventually resume.
Meanwhile, FIBA had lifted the ban on Richardson, so Micheal Ray’s next stop was Knorr Bologna, a division one team in Italy. And his journey over the waters was representative of the solution to David Stern’s most pressing problem.