""The basketball world and anyone Micheal came in contact with lost a great sportsman," Zelbst said. "He lived life to the fullest. He overcame the most incredible odds to accommodate 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, player, person and family man.""
""He had it all as a player, with no weaknesses in his game," former Detroit Pistons guard Isiah Thomas, a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, told Andscape in June. "He is the player who gave me the most problems playing against him. He was taller, just as fast and could shoot from 3 and midrange. His post-up game was elite. Offensively, he had it all.""
""Back when he played in the NBA, the best guards were Magic (Johnson) and then 'Sugar,'" former NBA guard Quinn Buckner said."
Micheal Ray Richardson died at 70 in Lawton, Oklahoma, after a short battle with prostate cancer. He starred at the University of Montana and was selected fourth overall by the New York Knicks in the 1978 NBA draft. Nicknamed "Sugar," he had an eight-year NBA career with the Knicks, Golden State and New Jersey, earning four All-Star selections and leading the league in steals three times. Richardson averaged a career-high 20.1 points, 8.2 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game for the Nets in 1984–85 and won the 1985 NBA Comeback Player of the Year. He was banned from the NBA in 1986 after a third violation of the league's drug policy related to cocaine use.
Read at ESPN.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]