During the 1985–86 season, Richardson’s last in the NBA, there were twenty-three teams in the league whose combined rosters included a total of sixty-seven white players. Discounting Mike Smrek and Ron Crevier, who were both born in Canada and played college ball in the United States, as well as Ernie Grunfeld, who was born in Romania, raised in New York City, and was an All-American at the University of Tennessee, only four of these white players were imported from foreign countries: Detlef Schrempf and Ewe Blab from Germany, Petur Gudmondsson from Iceland, and Georgi Glouchov from Bulgaria.
Fast forward to the 2012–13 NBA season, where a total of 101 white players appeared in uniform. True, the league had expanded to thirty teams, yet only 46 of these white players were born and raised in America. The other 55—from Omer Asik to Nicola Vucevic—were essentially foreign imports, and only a handful of them had played collegiately in America. The 2013 NBA draft showed the same tendency: of the 60 players selected, only 8 were American-born whites, while the whites drafted from other countries numbered 13.
In the 2016 NBA draft, five lottery selections were foreign born, as were eighteen of the sixty players chosen. Only five players were American-born Caucasians.
The dramatic increase in foreign whites is no accident. In truth, this was (and still is) a deliberate method of somewhat reducing the overwhelming number of black players on NBA rosters. For sure, a precious few of the current corps of white imports are (or were) outstanding players: Dirk Nowitzki, Kristaps Porzingas, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola, Marc and Pau Gasol. Some are average or somewhat better: the likes of Omer Asik, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Marco Belinelli, Marcin Gortat, Timofey Mozgov, and a handful of others. But most are either limited role players or outright stiffs: including Tonike Shengalia, Hasheem Thabeet, Gustavo Ayon, Victor Claver, Jan Vesely, Joel Freeland, Nando De Kolo, and several more.
It’s primarily in this last category that foreign whites have displaced black players.
So, then, where do these “extra” blacks go to cash in on their talents?
Mostly countries like Italy, Spain, France, Turkey, Germany, Israel, and lately China. Indeed, according to A. J. Mitnik, a widely respected international scout, as of the 2012–13 season, only four of the top fifty American players overseas are white.
In 1988 Micheal Ray Richardson finally joined the ranks of American blacks playing in what was euphemistically called “over the waters.”
Even though Bologna, Richardson’s in-season home from 1988–91, is the site of one of the oldest universities in history, the city’s nickname is la grassa, the Fat. That’s because food and other pleasures of the flesh have always been readily available there. Accordingly, the two basketball teams in Bologna have been sponsored by such firms as Eldorado (ice cream), Granarolo and Latte Sole (both producing various dairy products), Kinder (chocolate), PAF (pasta), and Mangiaebeva (literally “Eat and Drink”). No surprise, then, that the sponsor of Richardson’s new team was Knorr, an international corporation that produced soups, bouillon, spices, and sauces.
The names of some of Bologna’s streets also indicate other more visceral opportunities available there: Vicolo Baciadame (Lady-Kisser Lane) and even Via Fregatette (Tit-Rub Street).
Prior to leaving for Bologna, Richardson had been getting his basketball chops back up to speed by playing in the Houston Pro-Am League along with Moses Malone, John Lucas, and Chris Morris, the Nets top draft choice. He was also enrolled in Lucas’s drug rehab program and submitting to three drug tests every week. Prior to signing his contract with Knorr Bologna, and with his two-year’s banishment just past, Richardson had also applied for reinstatement into the NBA in February 1988. The league had just completed an intensive investigation during which over two dozen people were interviewed (including his wife Leah), his drugs tests were reviewed (all of them negative), plus he had met with David Stern, the NBA’s general counsel, and the league’s director of security. All of the evidence led Stern issued this statement: “It appears that Micheal Ray Richardson has constructively dealt with his addiction. No one can be absolutely sure that any recovering addict will not suffer a relapse, yet on the basis of all the circumstances, it is appropriate that Micheal Ray Richardson’s application for reinstatement be granted.”
The ruling meant that Richardson was eligible to sign with any NBA team that approached him. If he did join another team, his previous NBA team, the New Jersey Nets, would not be entitled for any manner of compensation.
Richardson was thrilled by the news. “I’m grateful for the NBA for giving me another opportunity to play basketball. I’m thirty-three years old and I think I have paid my dues.”
Richardson claimed that Philadelphia had made him a sizable one-year offer, but Sugar Ray turned down the 76ers for several reasons: The guaranteed two-year contract he had signed with Knorr Bologna that paid $350,000 annually and the sizeable bonus he was promised if he finished out the season with them. Also the unlikelihood that an NBA team would likewise guarantee him two-year’s employment. So, despite his jubilation, Richardson opted to continue his playing career in Italy.
Turned out, though, that the Philadelphia 76ers denied ever having offered Richardson any kind of contract. Did Richardson scam the Bologna team to squeeze more money from them?
In any event, after playing a few games with Bologna, Richardson was impressed: “Italy is a really strong league. I’d say next to the NBA it’s probably the second-strongest level of play in the world.” Likewise were the fans, the local media, and Bologna’s ownership impressed with Richardson.
In his 1994 book on basketball in Italy, Jim Patton observes that Richardson “had more talent than Italians had ever seen.” Every time Richardson made one of his routinely spectacular plays, the Bologna fans would chant, “Shoo-gah! Shoo-gah!”
However, the sheer unadulterated fanaticism of the spectators at literally every venue often proved to be dangerous—especially when a visiting team had the audacity to defeat the hometown heroes. As the winner’s bus pulled out of the parking lots, dozens of irate fans would routinely gather to throw rocks and bottles at departing foes. After every win on the road, Richardson learned that avoiding a widow seat was a good idea.
Sugar Ray found some other aspects of the Italian basketball culture “crazy.” Most imported Americans had to give presents to their Italian teammates or no passes would come their way. There was one Italian coach who made his players run up and down the court while tapping a blown-up balloon as a way of softening their shooting touch.
“Playing in Italy was like stealing money,” Richardson said, “but there was no racial prejudice at all. And I gradually began to feel more like a European than an American.”
Besides, “There’s less crime over here, everybody is way, way more relaxed, and the people are wonderful.” So wonderful, in fact, that Richardson divorced Leah and married an Italian woman.
With Richardson’s being ably assisted by Clemon Johnson, another black refugee from the NBA, Knorr Bologna won the 1989 Italian championship. Reports of Richardson’s stellar play were noted in Philadelphia when the 76ers belatedly offered him a guaranteed one-year contract. “By then I was thirty-four,” he says, “and I thought to myself, well, if I went back to the NBA, I might play that one year and that might be it. Since the Sixers wouldn’t go for a two-year guaranteed deal, I decided to stay in Italy.” Another reason for his decision was Knorr Bologna’s extending his contract for a third year.
At age thirty-four, Richardson demonstrated that his basketball chops were still in order during an Italian League all-star game played in Rome on November 26, 1989. With both the north and south squads featuring a total of eighteen former NBA players (including Brian Shaw, Darwin Cook, and Wes Matthews), Richardson dominated the procedures by scoring fifty points, which remains the high-water mark for Italian all-star competitions.
Even though he was playing power forward, Richardson led Knorr Bologna to a second consecutive Italian league championship before spearheading the successful drive to capture the prestigious Cup of Cups awarded to the European champions. But Richardson’s competitive fury apparently created at least one major incident.
In the last two minutes of a hotly contested game played on November 25, 1990, between Knorr Bologna and Ranger Varese a wild on-court fight broke out. The riot police were summoned to restore order and twelve players (including Richardson) were ejected. Bologna finished the game with only three players and lost 91–73. In the wake of the brawl, the referees identified Richardson’s cursing of the Varese players as the instigating factor. However, none of the banished players were subjected to any fines, suspensions, or any other disciplinary measures.
While it’s hard to imagine the NBA not punishing game-time fighting these days, violent mano a mano confrontations have been a large part of the history of the league.
The NBA was called the Basketball Association of America during its inaugural 1946–47 season. (The name was changed to the National Basketball Association in 1949 when the BAA absorbed several teams from the defunct National Basketball League.) The BAA’s charter teams were situated in Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Providence, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. Five of the franchise owners were associated with National Hockey League teams, and five ran teams in the American Hockey League. Only Mike Uline, the owner of the Washington Capitals, had no connection with a professional hockey team. Moreover, the BAA/NBA’s first commissioner, Maurice Podoloff, had previously been charged with administering the American Hockey League.
No surprise, then, that the NBA’s founding fathers believed, to a man, that their customers were attracted to ice hockey because, as one sportswriter had it, “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.” That’s why the BAA’s referees were instructed to let the cagers batter each other with impunity. If the college game was for boys, the new pro league would showcase a man’s game. As a result, in-game fights were routine.
The fact that since no matter how ruthlessly a player was assaulted, the attacker could only be assessed one foul led to many teams recruiting so-called hatchet men. The most notable of these were Vern Mikkelsen (Minneapolis Lakers, 1949–59), Wally Osterkorn (Syracuse Nationals, 1951–55), and Bob Brannum (Boston Celtics, 1951–55). In later years, these practitioners of the hard, knock-’em-down foul were called “enforcers” and included the likes of Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, Xavier McDaniel, Charles Oakley, Gene “Bumper” Tormohlen, “Jungle” Jim Luscotoff, John Q. Trapp, Maurice Lucas, and many more.
Accordingly, the history of the NBA includes numerous dramatic fights. Here’s a list of the most notable combatants:
Bill Russell versus George Dempsey on February 19, 1959.
Wilt Chamberlain versus Sam Jones on April 1, 1962, wherein Jones grabbed a photographer’s stool to keep Chamberlain at bay. In that very same game Carl Braun and Guy Rodgers also exchanged punches.
On February 21, 1963, Clyde Lovellete punched out several of Wilt Chamberlain’s front teeth, causing the big fellow to ponder retiring from the NBA.
The dishonor roll also includes a pair of coaches (Red Auerbach and Harry Gallatin) exchanging blows and having to be separated by the Boston police. Other brawlers included Hall of Famers Richie Guerin, Walt Bellamy, Oscar Robertson, Willis Reed, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tom Heinsohn, Rick Barry, Neil Johnston, Phil Jackson, Connie Hawkins, and Cliff Hagan. Plus various bloodbaths variously involving the Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trail Blazers, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls, plus the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons fighting just about everybody.
It should be noted, however, that there was a racial aspect to virtually every NBA punch fest. In July of 2011, an enterprising website—pbrbasketball.blogspot.com—listed all of the on-court fisticuffs that occurred from December 27, 1960, to November 21, 1969. Of the fifty-four on the list, only five pitted black players against each other:
Al Attles versus Zelmo Beatty (April 12, 1964) matched two of the most belligerent players in the history of the NBA.
The otherwise peaceful Leroy Ellis traded blows with McCoy McLemore (November 7, 1964) and also with Joe Caldwell (November 28, 1965).
Beatty and Bill Bridges teamed up to assault Jim “Bad News” Barnes on March 8, 1967.
And Lew Alcindor was involved in a two-for-one battle against Bob Rule and John Tresvant on November 21, 1969.
All of remaining fifty-one brawls involved either white-on-white or black-on-white combatants. It’s only very recently that the black brothers in the exclusive NBA fraternity have felt liberated enough to occasionally pound on each other.
Yet a pair of game-time fights have garnered the most attention, the most horrific of these being Kermit Washington’s smashing Rudy Tomjanovich’s face (December 9, 1977). The other critical incident took place in Detroit on November 24, 2004, when a fight between the Pistons and the Pacers spilled into the stands.
For sure, blame the BAA’s original owners for trying to attract erstwhile hockey fans by institutionalizing game-time violence. But there are several other reasons why subsequent NBA action has historically included so much bloody hand-to-hand combat:
More than any other professional sport, too many NBA players then and now are victims of their own self-perceptions. For them, the importance of being mucho-macho takes precedence over other, more significant values—like fair play, compromise, honesty, open-heartedness, respect for the game, and appropriate behavior. Too bad this “man’s man” image is a phony one.
For the true warrior, self-restraint is the ultimate measure of courage and self-respect. Not unleashing an elbow to the face in revenge for a careless insult. Not returning a hip check with a take down.
That’s because true self-respect comes from the inside and is projected outward. If the proffered insult is patently false—if the intended victim is not a “pussy,” a “weakling,” a “coward,” a “motherfucker,” or whatever he might be called—then the true warrior disregards it. His ultimate identity cannot be influenced or altered by what opponents think of him or do to him.
Those putative NBA he-men who overreact to the most marginal of slights are merely demonstrating how shallow and tentative their image of themselves as true warriors really is. Case in point—during a game played in Houston on February 2, 1995, Vern Maxwell ran into the stands and punched a fan who he later claimed had been heckling him. The Rockets’ guard never disclosed the nature of, or the reason for the fan’s verbal abuse—and Maxwell was assessed a ten-game suspension and a $10,000 fine.
Even more infamous were the hostilities between the Pistons and the Pacers in Detroit—known as the Malice at the Palace—on November 19, 2004. This brouhaha was initiated when Indiana’s Ron Artest (later to be called Metta World Peace) committed a hard foul from behind on Detroit’s Ben Wallace. The Pistons’ big men responded by shoving Artest, and the altercation accelerated when a fan threw a partially filled cup of beer at Artest. That led to Artest and his Pacers teammates Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson leaping into the stands and attacking several fans.
If Wallace were a true warrior, he would have laughed at Artest’s childish behavior and concentrated on making his free throws. But Wallace believed he was dissed, insulted, chumped and became a victim of his own false self-image.
Likewise did Artest believe himself to be so demeaned by the trash that the fan threw at him that his only reaction had to be immediate retaliation. By so doing, Artest proved himself to be too weak to avoid assaulting a hapless civilian. Count Jackson and O’Neal in the same misguided category.
In truth, suffering the slings, arrows, and beer cups launched by outrageous fanatics is part of an NBA player’s job description—but overreacting is not. Do the math. A cup of spilled beer plus some punches landed on civilians wound up costing nine players a total of 146 game suspensions as well as $11,548,832 in salaries lost.
And what’s the reason why so many NBA players are so quick to take offense when they believe their manhood is being challenged? Because the media, the NBA publicity machine, and the league’s various corporate sponsors present the players as supermen. Bigger than life—ours, and even theirs. Buy the sneakers they wear or a facsimile of their game jerseys, eat their favorite snacks, drive their favorite cars, and even the clumsiest, nerdiest among us can bask in the shadow of real manhood.
It’s all a scam, and the players are bigger suckers than anybody else.
But why, then, are the most passionate fans such willing victims? Because their workaday lives are usually so empty, frustrating, and unfulfilled that they desperately need some kind of vicarious experience to make them feel like winners. Too bad the anger and resentment of their personal realities is always there just beneath the surface of their painful grins and strained good cheer. It’s a coiled sort of anger that is constantly being repressed. Would they dare vent their profound discontent to their spouses? Or their bosses? Hell, no.
So one of the reasons why Sports America is populated by so many millions of devout fans is that rooting for a particular athlete or team is an acceptable way of releasing that anger. However, rooting for the good guys often means rooting against (and demonizing) the bad guys.
Notice, though, that all of the fans involved in the Malice in the Palace brawl were sitting in some of the most expensive seats in the arena. Perhaps, in our current spiritless culture, having the material pleasures that money can buy is not enough to bring peace unto one’s soul.
In truth, the Detroit Debacle was the NBA’s worst nightmare come to pass. The “flagrant foul” rule was instituted around the time of Maxwell’s grievous transgression, but it was not ultimately designed to prevent the players from assaulting each other. Along with the thinking of the original BAA bigwigs, player-on-player mayhem is still considered to be boffo at the box office. Yet, by instituting severe penalties for on-court contact that might precipitate fisticuffs (and by punishing bench-bound players who mount the court to enter the fray), the NBA was hoping to prevent such fights from spilling over into the stands. Imagine the litigation should any of the wealthy courtside fans be accidentally injured!
Uh oh!
The bottom line is that the corporate entity that is the NBA is a victim of its own need to generate big ratings and big bucks. By lionizing individual players and thereby marginalizing the importance of teamwork, the league necessarily creates artificial heroes and villains, true believers and apostates. Both the idolatry and the ill will that result have distorted the purity, grace, and even the beauty of The Game.
What to do, then? How to bring a sense of proportion into the business and fanaticism of professional sports?
Education is the only answer—or rather, reeducation. The players, the fans, the professional observers, and even the NBA’s puppet masters must learn how to discern the true, transcendent beauty of athletic competition. In truth, basketball is ballet with defense. A leaping, dancing, spontaneous celebration of the human spirit as performed by gifted, acrobatic giants—the finest athletes in the world! The Game represents a blending of skills in unlimited and unpredictable combinations. Yes, it’s five against five. But it’s also ten players playing one game.
Winning is certainly the goal. But so is community of spirit. And there’s also a bittersweet glory in playing the right way and losing. Both on and off the court.
But, alas, the bean counters who really run the NBA will only evaluate their sport in numbers inked in red or black.
In any event, Richardson’s foul-mouthed instigation of the free-for-all in Varese was never mentioned by Knorr Bologna’s administrators as the reason for his fall from grace after the 1991 season, his third in Italy. Instead, the team’s management made the ridiculous claim that Richardson was cut loose only to clear salary space to sign a better player.
Richardson, however, had his own interpretation of why the team declined to renew his contract: “The coach was an ego maniac, and he resented the fact that I was a bigger star than he was.”
Lorenzo Sani was a sportswriter for the local daily Il Resto del Carlino, the most prestigious newspaper in Bologna. (Consistent with Bologna’s eat-drink-and-be-merry culture, the name of the newspaper translates as “change from the cost of an espresso.”) Sani had this to say about the move: “Sugar had a great year and is still the most popular player in town. Because it seems like such a crazy decision, there is the impression that it has to do with drugs. And because of Sugar’s past, nobody asks for any further explanation.” While, it was generally believed that Richardson had failed some drug tests, Sani had his doubts. “I say if there is evidence, let’s see it, if there is none, this is really crazy. But there is nothing Sugar can do. He is gone from Bologna. And he’s most angry at Alessandro Mancaruso, the general manager of the team.” Sani parenthetically noted that Mancaruso was infamous for having “a very big nose.”
In response to Sani’s skepticism, Mancaruso claimed that Richardson did, indeed, fail a drug test administered by the team. Mancaruso added that Richardson’s “basketball career is probably over.” (Richardson did indeed test positive in his latest drug test.)
Gary Bettman, the NBA’s senior vice president and chief counsel, said that the news meant that Sugar Ray’s reinstatement into the league was retracted: “If, in fact, Micheal Ray Richardson has suffered a drug relapse, he would not be eligible to participate in the NBA.”
Joe Taub was dismayed by this latest development. “It was a real sad day for me when I heard,” said Taub. “I regret that I’ve lost contact with Micheal Ray, but I want to talk to him. I want to help him.”
Taub’s reaction speaks volumes about how Richardson’s buoyant, endearing personality so strongly affected people who knew him well. If it was easy to get angry with Richardson, it was impossible to dislike him. Yet if some opportunities were no longer available, Richardson was still an extraordinary basketball player. In short order, he signed a one-year deal with KK Split, a traditional powerhouse team in Croatia.
The most notable alumni of Richardson’s latest team were Dino Raja and Toni Kukoc, who were both born in Split and went on to successful careers in the NBA. Drazen Petrovic, born in nearby Sibinek, was another outstanding performer for KK Split before excelling in the NBA. The team had won several Euroleague competitions, and in the McDonald’s Championship tournaments in 1989 and 1990, Split had survived into the title games—first losing to the Denver Nuggets by 139–129 in Rome, then being bested by the New York Knicks. 117–101. Even so, the overall level of play was not quite up to the standards of the Italian teams.
Split was the second largest city in Croatia (ranking only behind Belgrade, the capital city), and its placement along the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea made it the country’s most popular tourist attraction. Beaches, thermal spas, world-class golf courses and restaurants, ski slopes, the ancient ruins of the medieval quarter, plus lively nightclubs all ensured that Sugar Ray, for one, would enjoy his stay there.
Yet all the benefits of playing and living in Split were overshadowed by the spreading war in the Balkans. As the fighting drew closer to Split, Richardson grew more apprehensive and began to think about making a quick exit stage left. However, since the hostilities were mostly kept at a distance during the season, he did finish it out.
In any event, Richardson hadn’t been in Croatia for a month when, by sheer happenstance, a European Cup game matched Split against his former team from Bologna. Because of the war, the game was played in La Coruna, Spain. Revenge was on his mind, so before the game Richardson browsed through the local marketplace and came up with the perfect object to accomplish his desire: a pair of thick black eyeglasses topped with bushy black eyebrows and attached above a huge plastic nose. A nose nearly as big as the one on Alessandro Mancaruso’s face.
After the game, which Richardson iced by converting a pair of late-game free throws, he donned his eyeglasses-nose apparatus and marched around the court waving a “STOP THE WAR IN CROATIA” sign that accompanied the team wherever they played. Then Richardson found Mancaruso and sprayed his ex-boss with a storm of curses in English and Italian. Forever after, Richardson referred to that specific contest as “the big nose game.” (Interesting to note that Richardson never stuttered when speaking Italian.)
Yet despite Richardson’s gaining a huge surge of satisfaction, Split failed to win any international competition, and besides, the encroaching war made a prolonged sojourn in Split unrealistic. Because his most recent positive drug test had been administered by Knorr Bologna and not by the Italian League, Richardson was eligible to play for any other Italian team that desired his services. So it was that the next stop on Richardson’s basketball caravan was a return trip to Italy—this time with Baker Livorno.
Another port city boasting gorgeous Mediterranean beaches, tony hotels, restaurants, and night clubs, Livorno was a short drive from Florence. If Richardson’s newest team was notably better than his last team, Livorno was far from being among the Italian League’s elite ballclubs. Except for Richardson, the other once-and-future NBA players who played for Livorno included Lee Johnson, Scott May, David Wood, Anthony Jones, Jay Vincent, and Brad Wright—all of them strictly marginal performers.
The highlight of Richardson’s two-year stint in Livorno occurred late in the 1992–93 season when he was instrumental in defeating heavily favored Knorr Bologna by 83–81 in overtime at Bologna. With the still loyal Bologna fans chanting, “Shoo-gah! Shoo-gah!” Richardson tallied thirty points, mostly on isolation plays out of a 1-2-2 set.
However, with the team mired in the lower depths of the standings, and with its financial difficulties leading to a bankruptcy procedure, Richardson decided to move on.
Next up was the Olympique Sharks situated in Antibes along the French Riviera in southeast France. Richardson was the first ex-NBAer to wear a Sharks uniform and was succeeded by only two more—Brad Sellers in 2000, and David Rivers in 2005. However, the forty-three golden beaches, super-luxurious accommodations, the Picasso museum, the Napoleon museum, and world-famous jazz festivals have lured several megacelebrities to live in Antibes for extended periods—the likes of Graham Greene, the Duke of Windsor, and Aristotle Onassis. If Richardson was not quite an international icon, he did lead the Sharks to the French championship in 1995.
At the time, the most competitive basketball was played in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Greece, and the Balkan countries with France relegated near the bottom of the list along with Germany, Belgium, and Holland. Yet in times to come, a slew of NBA players would claim France as their birthplace or be proud to be French citizens. This list includes Tony Parker, Nicolas Batum, Bruce Bowen, Udonis Haslem, Ron Anderson Jr., Boris Diaw, Ronny Turiaf, Rodrigue Beaubois, Joakim Noah, Evan Fournier, Mickael Pietrus, and J. R. Reid. Would it be too much of a stretch to believe that Richardson’s dynamic performances provided a significant impetus for the growth of basketball in France?
In any event, while Richardson at age forty was still an incredibly dynamic player able to command midlevel six-figure salaries, in 1996 his status as the best American hooper in Europe was eclipsed by Dominque Wilkins’s signing with a team in Greece. Wilkins was only thirty-five and justified his $3.5 million contract by leading Panathiakios to the Greek Cup and the Euroleague championship. Then Wilkins returned to the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs for the 1996–97 season. A year later, Wilkins played for Bologna before finishing his NBA career with Orlando in 1998–99.
Meanwhile, Richardson was continuing his own basketball odyssey. After three seasons in Antibes, he played the 1997–98 campaign with another French team (Cholet Basket).
In October 1997 Richardson was in attendance for the McDonald’s Open, a preseason tournament in Paris that featured the Chicago Bulls. NBA commissioner David Stern was also on hand, and Richardson was eager to make a connection. “I sat next to him,” Richardson recalls, “and I told him that he saved my life by opening my eyes and getting me back on the right track. His eyes just lit up. Here was the guy who had ended my NBA career, but I did not hold any grudges. Ever since then, we’ve had a special relationship.” In truth, Stern did more than save Micheal Ray Richardson’s life—he rescued the NBA from becoming strictly a second-rate attraction.
According to Bill Walton, a counterculture quasi-hippie, “David Stern is the single most important person in the history of basketball.”
Stern was born on September 22, 1942, in the Chelsea section of Manhattan “when a sense of neighborhood and family community was important,” he says. “My father owned and ran a grocery store, and it was always a big deal when he got free tickets to a baseball game from one of his beer suppliers. I was a die-hard Giants fan, so Willie Mays was much better than Mickey and the Duke. I also liked the Giants because they had the first all-black outfield with Willie Mays, Hank Thompson, and Monte Irvin.”
The young Stern was also a Knicks fan, and he favored playing basketball over any other sport. “I played on my synagogue team,” he says. “Then when I went to college at Rutgers, I played in the Teaneck rec league. But I never had any delusions of being a real player. I was a reliable defender, and if I ever did wind up with the ball, I’d pass it quickly to someone who could shoot. Playing basketball was always fun.”
After graduating from Rutgers, Stern enrolled in the Columbia Law School, passed the New York State bar in 1966, and was immediately hired by Proskauer Rose, an influential law firm. For the next twelve years, Stern functioned as the NBA’s “outside counsel,” before becoming the league’s general counsel in 1978. When Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were drafted in the spring of 1979, Stern was instrumental in changing the entire focus of the NBA’s publicity machine. Instead of concentrating on The Game, Stern encouraged the promoting of individuals, i.e., Magic and Bird. “Either you move ahead and stay with the times,” Stern explained, “or you fall off the chart.”
Within two years, Stern was the NBA’s executive vice president and was the driving force in establishing mandatory and random drug testing, as well as a salary cap. Both of these innovations were so appreciated by the team owners that on February 1, 1984, he was made the NBA’s commissioner.
During his thirty-year tenure as the administrative face of the NBA, Stern succeeded in implementing several other actions that further enhanced the league’s popularity: When Michael Jordan joined the Chicago Bulls in 1984, a carefully crafted publicity campaign resulted in His Airness succeeding Magic and Bird as the NBA’s most iconic player-personality. Stern convinced the NBA’s board of governors that the coin flip used to determine which of the league’s two worst teams would get the number-one draft pick was a cheap trick. Thus began the search for a suitable draft procedure that would discourage teams from tanking games to obtain better picks.
Under Stern’s impetus, the NBA expanded from twenty-seven to thirty teams, and added a third referee to each game.
Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner became the first female referees in any major U.S. sport.
The several McDonald’s classics, routine exhibition games played by NBA teams against European opponents, and the admittance of NBA Dream Team into the 1992 Olympics, all led to the increasing influx of white Europeans into the league.
Stern was the guiding force behind the establishment of the Women’s National Basketball Association.
Before Stern’s regime, the NBA finals were televised on tape delay. Within five years, the finals were shown live on network TV.
Under Stern’s guidance, the NBA became the first major sport to utilize cable TV.
Not counting ticket sales, the twenty-seven teams that existed in 1985 garnered a combined total of about $20 million in outside revenue. By 2014 that income had ballooned to $5.5 billion.
The NBA instituted a systematic use of instant replays to correctly adjudicate several carefully categorized close plays.
Stern implemented a dress code for players, forcing them to wear business suits or conservative attire to and from arenas while representing their respective teams.
Stern flexed his influence in December 2011, when—acting as de facto owner of the league-controlled New Orleans Hornets—he vetoed a trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers, Pau Gasol to the Rockets, and Lamar Odom to the Hornets.
It was Stern’s banishment of Micheal Ray Richardson—“the hardest thing I’ve ever done”—that virtually ended the drug abuse scandals that had plagued the NBA.
And the “life-saving” bond between Stern and Richardson proved to be a lasting one. Before every season that Sugar Ray played in Europe, he and Stern made sure to connect via lengthy phone calls.
However, Stern’s tenure as commissioner did contain some serious missteps—including five “lockouts” by the owners in their continuing attempts to weaken the NBA players’ union. In 1995, 1996, and 1999, these procedures didn’t last long enough to affect the forthcoming seasons. But the 1998–99 campaign was reduced to fifty games and the 2010–11 season to sixty-five games.
Both of these abbreviated seasons led to skewed results because the surviving games had to be squeezed into a briefer schedule. With teams required to play four games every week instead of the usual three, ballclubs centered around older players were severely handicapped. Plus, the historical and statistical continuity of the NBA was utterly disjointed.
Another of Stern’s low points was his permitting the annual highlight video of the 1988–89 season to focus on the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons. “What happened,” he later said, “is that one of the NBA’s merchandising partners came to me after Detroit’s first championship and proposed that the NBA’s home video be called ‘Bad Boys.’ The guy said he was losing his behind in video sales, and he felt that the outlaw appeal would boost marketing. Besides, everybody was calling the Pistons ‘Bad Boys’ anyway. So I went along with it.”
Of course, the glorification of violence eventually led to the dreadful fight at the Palace five years later. Clearly, antiviolence measures had to be instituted.
Under Stern’s impetus, subsequent rules mandated the automatic expulsion and suspension for any player who threw a punch, whether the blow landed or not. Also, any player who left the bench and stepped onto the court during a melee would likewise be suspended. But more subtle changes were deemed necessary.
Hand checking was outlawed, said Stern, “because it slowed the game and encouraged a bump-and-grind style. Plus, everybody was getting annoyed. Slap that hand away, push it away, push it back. And that’s not what fans were paying to see.”
Besides lowering the players’ temperature and hopefully preventing physical confrontations, the ban against hand checking diminished the effectiveness of individual defense. So, too, did prohibiting a defender from bumping off-ball cutters.
Another reason for penalizing physical defense was to really give the fans what they “were paying to see.” More flashy uncontested dunks, and much more scoring.
With offensive players now granted the freedom to move in the attack zone, NBA coaches had no trouble adjusting to the new game plan since Euroball offered a ready-made model: Continuous cutting through the paint, snappy ball reversals around the perimeter, employing guards and wings who were comfortable driving and kicking, an emphasis on three-point shooting, and a general concern with spacing the floor. Also, since the vast majority of fouls are called on the defense, high pick and rolls as well as pick and fades not only generated open treys but allowed the refs a clear view of isolated action that only involved four players.
As a corollary, the refs began to permit ball penetrators to take an extra step, hop, skip, and/or jump as they approached the basket. Virtually incapable of being defended in one-on-one situations, this maneuver was even called the “Euro Step.”
Meanwhile, after playing for one rather lackluster season for Cholet Basket, Richardson returned to Italy with Carne Montana Forli (1998–99), a team named for its sponsor, a meat company. “The competition is better in Italy,” Richardson explained, “and so was the money.” At forty-three, Richardson was twenty-two years older than his youngest teammate.
Richardson then decided on another one-season go-round in Livorno, followed by reprising his stint in Antibes (2001), and finishing his active career with another French team AC Golfe-Juan-Vallauris in 2002.
Here’s what Richardson had to say during his last season as a hooper: “I was put out of the NBA because of drugs, but you know what? I always wake up and kiss my blessings. Here I am sixteen years later, and I’m still playing professional ball. Still doin’ my thing. So I ain’t mad at nobody. All I ask is that you be real. Don’t paint me out to be no choir boy, because I wasn’t. Just judge me for what I was able to do on that basketball court, nothing else. That’s all I ask. Because where there’s muthafuckin’ shit, there’s always some muthafuckin’ sugar.”
However, if Richardson had long harbored the goal of being the oldest professional basketball player in the world, his retirement at age forty-seven left him five years short of the European career of Ron Anderson Sr.
If Richardson’s playing career was over, David Stern found a way to get Micheal Ray back into the NBA.