Despite his infamous ban from NBA action, Micheal Ray Richardson’s story became renowned on and off the hardwood.
Per Marc J. Spears of ESPN, four-time NBA All-Star and renowned two-way talent Micheal Ray Richardson died at the age of 70 on Tuesday in Lawton, Oklahoma. Spears’ report said that Richardson had been diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly before his passing.
“The basketball world and anyone Micheal came in contact with lost a great sportsman,” Richardson’s attorney and friend John Zelbst said in Spears’ report. “He lived life to the fullest. He overcame the most incredible odds to accomplish what he did in life. He serves as an example on how to redeem yourself and make something of yourself. I think he is the greatest NBA player that has never been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Incredible player, person and family man.”
RIP Micheal “Sugar” Ray Richardson!
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) November 11, 2025
Larry Bird once called him the best player on the planet & this is why
38 PTS, 11 AST, 11 REB, 9 STL
20 PTS, 8 AST, 8 REB, 8 STL
27 PTS, 14 AST, 8 REB, 7 STL
15 PTS, 12 AST, 12 REB, 7 STL
pic.twitter.com/B9SJneDfIw
Richardson is perhaps best-known for being banned from the NBA in 1986 for violations of the league’s drug policies. Before and after that, however, Richardson established himself as a premier two-way threat on both the domestic and international levels.
Richardson burst onto the scene at the University of Montana, partly guiding the Grizzlies to their first NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament victory in 1975 as a freshman. His name continues to pepper the Montana record books, still standing as the men’s program’s all-time leader in field goals and ranking second in points.
To date, Richardson is one of only two Montana alumni (along with Lee Johnson, who later transferred) to hear his name called during the first round of the NBA Draft, as the New York Knicks made him the fourth overall choice in 1978.
“Have you ever seen the movie “Coming to America” with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall? It was like that, it was like going from the smallest place in America to the biggest place in America,” Richardson told Geoff Magliocchetti of Ball Is Life in 2024 about being drafted by the Knicks. “It was like a shock, you know, because, like, when I first got there, I arrived in the evening time, and when I woke up the next morning, like the first day, I said where’s the grass, where’s the trees? Because there’s no grass or trees in New York City. I mean, it was a shock.”
Manhattan had a tall task for Richards, who had to fill in the backcourt void previously occupied by franchise legend Walt “Clyde” Frazier. But Richardson left a near-immediate impression on the NBA upon his debut, leading the Association in assists (10.1) and steals (3.2, still a Knicks single-season franchise record) per game during his sophomore season in 1979-80.
That tour yielded the first of three All-Star Game invites with the Knicks, who won 50 games for the first time since the 1973 championship run in Richardson’s third season after that. Richardson continues to stand as the Knicks’ all-time leader in steals per game (2.6) and ranks second in Knick triple-doubles behind Frazier (18).
Shortly before the 1982-83 season tipped off, Richardson was traded to the Golden State Warriors in a deal that sent Bernard King to Manhattan. He was sent to the New Jersey Nets later that year and led the Association in steals per game. Limited to 48 games in his first full season in the Garden State, Richardson played 82 in the following campaign and took back his steals title, landing the 1985 Comeback Player of the Year Award and his fourth and final All-Star bid.
Richardson’s NBA career ended with the ban after he violated the NBA’s drug policy for the third time. He was the first active player to be banned by the league. Despite never returning to the NBA (he was eligible for reinstatement by 1988), Richardson told BIL he became “really, really” close with then-commissioner David Stern, who named the All-Star an NBA European ambassador when the latter’s playing career finally ended.
“When I left the NBA, I really didn’t get a chance to see him, but I saw him over in Milan, Italy when the NBA teams had come over there. I saw him doing the basketball game, and I walked up to him and told him that I wasn’t angry or anything, that he did what he had to do,” Richardson recalled. “The way I looked at it, was that he was part of saving my life, because he did something that he had to do, that that really caught my attention. I would call him, like, once a week, twice a week.”
Richardson instead continued his playing career in Europe, earning several major accomplishments in Croatia, France, and Italy. He would play until he was 47 years old, taking his traditional place on the assists and steal leaderboards in the major European leagues. Domestically, Richardson played the first seasons after his ban with the Long Island Knights and Albany Patroons of the United States Basketball League and Continental Basketball Association respectively, winning a professional championship with the latter in 1988.
Once his playing career ended, Richardson returned to the CBA to coach the same Patroons for three seasons. He later moved onto the same league’s Oklahoma/Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry and won back-to-back championships in 2008-09. Following the CBA’s folding, two more championships awaited Richardson up north, as he guided the London Lightning to the wins in the National Basketball League of Canada in 2012-13. For his efforts, Richardson was named the NBL’s Coach of the Year for those tours.
Richardson had been stationed in Oklahoma for about the final decade of his life and frequented Oklahoma City Thunder games. Last year, Richardson teamed up with author Jake Uitti to pen “Banned: How I Squandered an All-Star NBA Career Before Finding My Redemption,” a memoir reflecting on his career on and off the floor. Introducing the book to BIL, Richardson stated that he had been sober for nearly 40 years at the time of its publishing.
“I wanted to set the record straight, and I always wanted to tell my side of the story, of what really happened to me,” Richardson said on why now was the best time to tell his story. “As a basketball fan, I’d like to think that the thing people can take out of it is that no matter what you go through in life, there are going to be some ups and downs, but there is an end of the road if you do the right thing.”
Richardson is survived by his wife Kimberly and his children Tasha, Corey, Tamara, Kim, and Micheal Jr.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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