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Micheal Ray Richardson puts troubled past behind him

Ken Berger

1:25 PM EDT, May 10, 2008

Micheal Ray Richardson led the Oklahoma Cavalry to the Continental Basketball Association title a few weeks back by beating the Minot (N.D.) Skyrockets in five games. (Photo by Mike Mazzo)

While the NBA coaching carousel spins out of control, and while the teams that don't need new coaches have been showing why in the playoffs, Micheal Ray Richardson has been busy.

Busy putting last year's bogus anti-Semitic allegations behind him. Busy making yet another second chance count by winning his first championship as a coach.

That's right: The player who might have been as good as a guy who spelled Michael differently if not for a journey to the dark side of drug abuse is now a championship coach.

"Of all the guys that I played with throughout my career, Micheal would be the last one I would have chosen to say he wanted to go into coaching," said Otis Birdsong, Richardson's former teammate with the Nets and the general manager of the Oklahoma Cavalry, who won the Continental Basketball Association title a few weeks back by beating the Minot (N.D.) Skyrockets in five games.

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It was the completion of a trying journey for Richardson, who was suspended by the Albany Patroons and then not rehired as their coach last year after he made some prejudicial comments about Jews in an Albany newspaper. The details of how Richardson carelessly discussed having "big-time Jew lawyers" working for him on a contract extension and referred to Jews as "crafty" are hardly worth rehashing.

"C'mon, man, that's a joke," Birdsong said. "Anti-Semitic? Please. He's anti-black if anything."

Richardson had coached the Patroons to the CBA Finals against Yakama last year, but was suspended after Game 1. With Richardson exiled over the comments, the Sun Kings completed a three-game sweep for the title.

David Stern, the NBA's Jewish commissioner who banned Richardson from the league for drug use in 1986 and later became one of his staunchest supporters, stood by him.

"This is not Micheal Ray," Stern told his wife upon reading the comments, according to Richardson. "This is a bad rap."

Richardson was cleared of wrongdoing by the league and was hired to coach the expansion team in Oklahoma. This was only a slightly worse job than being hired to coach the Knicks.

"We didn't have anything," Birdsong said. "We didn't have any office space. We didn't have a place to play. We didn't have any players. No dance team, no mascot, nothing."

All they had was a coach, who quickly called his friend Birdsong and talked him into leaving consulting gigs with a now-defunct mortgage company and a nutritional supplement maker to join him in Lawton, Okla., as GM.

"When I was up in Albany, I had to do all the work," Richardson said. "Do the contracts, go out and get the players; I was the coach and the general manager. I really couldn't concentrate just on coaching. So when I got this job, the first person who came to mind was to go get Otis. I knew he had success in the minor leagues. I knew he knew the game and I knew he was someone that I could trust."

Birdsong had won the ABA championship as president and general manager of the Arkansas Rimrockers, but was skeptical of the Oklahoma gig.

"Quite honestly," Birdsong said, "I thought Micheal was just doing it for the money."

Then he watched his former teammate run a tryout camp in Dallas and said, "This man really knows what he's doing. I told my wife I was relieved to see that he knew what he was doing. As close as I am to Micheal, he's the coach and he has to be successful or we both would be outta here."

Life as a CBA coach or GM is decidedly lacking in charm, not to mention the multi-million-dollar contracts that soon will be doled out to the likes of Mike D'Antoni and Mark Jackson. Birdsong doesn't simply get players. He gets the mascot and dancers, sells tickets, and doubles as a glorified parking attendant at home games.

For Richardson, coaching is coaching. His passion for the game and hatred of losing - both of which fueled his career but got him in trouble in Albany - are still there. But he's learning how to control his emotions - and most of all, to watch what comes out of his mouth.

"After going through all the stuff that I went through with the drug stuff, I'm able to not get involved in what people say," Richardson said. "There's things that you can change and there's things you can't. So the things that I can't, I just sort of deal with it."