The Real Reason Michael Ray Richardson Refused to Return to the NBA

At eleven he sat on the floor rubbing his mother's feet after her second job of the day and promised to buy her a house. His first contract bought it. Six years later the bank took it back and she moved out. That is the number this story runs on — not the ban. This film follows the first active player in league history to be banned for life, told he was finished at a baggage carousel in Newark airport at the age of thirty. You will hear about the one recruiter who came to him in four years of high school, the season he led the entire NBA in assists and steals at once, the four words of street English people still quote forty years on, and the thirteen seasons in Bologna that almost nobody in America knows about. Subscribe to Broken Hardwood for more untold stories from the NBA's golden age. TIMECODES 00:00 — A Promise Made on a Floor in Denver, and a House Lost 02:43 — Lubbock to Denver, and a Mother Working Two Jobs 04:07 — One Recruiter, One Offer, and Nine Hundred Miles to Missoula 04:52 — A Coach Leaves Montana for a Freshman Named Magic Johnson 06:02 — The Knicks Take Michael Ray Richardson Two Spots Above Larry Bird 07:22 — First in the NBA in Assists and Steals in the Same Season 10:14 — Four Words to a Reporter That Are Still Being Quoted 14:55 — Richardson's New Jersey Knocks out the Defending Champion 17:15 — February 25, 1986: A Suit Waiting at the Baggage Claim 19:04 — 1988: Reinstated at Last, and He Turned the Money Down 19:52 — Bologna Chants One Word at Michael Ray Richardson for Thirteen Years #MichaelRayRichardson #SugarRay #RichardsonBan #NBAGoldenAge #NBADownfall