In later years, he would become a star in Europe, dominating the Italian league and ushering in an era known as “Sugarmania.” But along the way, things got worse for the loyal player: Richardson famously became the first player to be permanently banned by the NBA and its then-commissioner. David SternBut he’s also the first player to return after such a punishment. For years, Richardson’s serious drug addiction put his career at risk, and you can read all about it in his new memoir. ProhibitedReleased on November 26th.
Below is an excerpt from the book.
Chapter 8: “Sugar”
Everyone has called me Sugar ever since I was in college. It started at the University of Montana and it just stuck. I played really well in my early matches when I first got there. Players with the middle name Ray were called “Sugar Ray” after boxers Sugar Ray Robinson and later Sugar Ray Leonard, so everyone started calling me Sugar. In Missoula, everyone thought I was a special athlete. I was a kind person on and off the court. So it just became a part of me. Now my friends don’t hesitate to call me Sugar. I live up to it and even have it on my license plate and on my gear shift.
The nickname stuck in later years because of my association with drugs. It was ironic, and described my failures as much as my talents. It’s funny how the two intertwine at the top. The top is so close to the fall. People think that once you get to the top, staying there is easy. Hell, I thought so too! But the hard part is not getting there, it’s staying there. I made it into the league. I was an all-star. So when I started doing drugs, I thought I could quit at any time. If I wanted to do something, I just did it. What’s the same with recreational habits? But I ended up stumbling upon something stronger than I was.
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Humanity consumes about 180 million tons of sugar per year. The United States is the world’s largest consumer of sugar, consuming 11 million tons per year. That’s 10 times more than we should. America is a nation of addicts and people who want to get high. As children, we’re taught that candy is our friend. As young adults, we sneak into our parents’ liquor cabinets, and caffeine is one of them. In the United States, we consume 146 billion cups of coffee per year. As we get older, we turn to other white powders to get high, or take drugs that make us hungry, and we crave more sugar. It’s an epidemic. Sugar is everywhere.
Sugar comes from plants. Sugarcane requires a warm climate to grow, so much of it comes from areas in South America. Historically, much of the cocaine in the United States also came from South America. The world’s most popular carbonated drink, Coca-Cola, once contained cocaine. Today, the average American consumes about 450 servings of Coca-Cola products per year.
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It all started to go wrong when I decided to move from New Jersey to the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City midway through my junior season. Our story has already been written for usbecause of stuff like what happened afterwards. The movers who brought my stuff into the city from New Jersey were cousins of one of the biggest drug dealers on the East Coast. MuhammadSo where exactly did Muhammad live? He’s from the West Indies, but he now lives on the fourth floor of the building I’m moving into in Chelsea, one floor below me.
I was tired of the commute and the city traffic so I decided to move to Manhattan. I wanted to be closer to my workplace, MSG. Looking back now I wonder what on earth I did that for! Muhammad’s cousin introduced us. At the time I didn’t really think much of it. I met new people every day in my job and Muhammad was a nice guy and I considered him a friend. “Stop by anytime,” he said. Once I was settled, I would go there in the evenings to play cards, dominoes and make small talk. Just to kill time. But the devil had a plan for me.
Then, instead of just playing games, Mohamed started passing cocaine around. That was the first time I sniffed it. I had just come back from a team road trip and decided to try it to hang out with him and his friends. Like I said, the first time I snorted the white powder, it didn’t work on me. It didn’t get me high. So I tried it again without giving it much thought. At Mohamed’s house, he would have other people over, sometimes other NBA players. Cocaine was social, like alcohol. Oh, it was like coffee. But the second time, the third time, a few days later, I was addicted. My brain exploded. And then, a few weeks later, Mohamed brought out the pipe.
After a month or so, I stopped snorting cocaine and started snorting cocaine, which is even worse. When you snort cocaine, it’s called freebase, and it’s more potent. It’s like cocaine on steroids, believe it or not. But there was a process to do it. I had to buy a kit with the right pipe, lighter, and other accessories. When I brought it over, Muhammad said, “I have something I want you guys to try.” Mike CareyThe book “Bad NewsFormer professional basketball player Marvin “Bad News” BurnsThere are a lot of shady characters in the show. Well, in my life, Muhammad was one of those characters. He loved hanging out with the NBA players and made us crazy.
Muhammad was also a big Knicks fan, so he knew who I was and was happy to be around me. But unlike Bad News, who was a great player in the ABA, I have never engaged in any criminal activity other than smoking or smoking marijuana. I never hosted parties, sold drugs, or drove. The problem was just using it. That’s problem enough! While I wish Muhammad had never given me drugs, that his cousin had never introduced us, that I had never moved into that building in Chelsea, or hired those movers, at the end of the day, I take full responsibility for my actions. They are mine and mine alone.
I haven’t seen Mohammed since. If I met him now, I don’t even know what I’d say. I’d sigh wearily — if he were still alive. I can still remember his voice and his warm, generous but flickering face. “Try it,” he said. “It’s not bad. Give it a try.” Curious, I tried it. I liked it. Naive, wanting more. But even then, going into my third and fourth season, I still wasn’t addicted to marijuana. It wasn’t the most important thing in my life…yet. It was just a fun thing to do, first on my days off, then at home in Denver. But the next thing I knew, I was addicted to marijuana. It was terrible.
Deep down, I know I have a good heart. I’ve been in tough situations, but I’m not a bad person. When you’re an addict, your perspective is tunnel vision. You see your surroundings with your own eyes, but at the same time, you’re not fully there. That’s why, when you’re high, you don’t want to be out in public. When I was on drugs, I didn’t want to go to Studio 54, or the Cotton Club on 125th Street, or anywhere in the city. I didn’t need to be around people because I knew I would get delusional. Plus, I didn’t want anyone to see me messed up. Addicts usually want to be alone.
Later in my career, when I did drugs, I would either go to a hotel alone, with my girlfriend or with another person I was using with. If not in a hotel, I would do it in my apartment. In New York, I hadn’t yet become a full-blown drug addict. But it didn’t take long for me to fall off a cliff. When you get to that point, you lose all sense of yourself. You become a zombie. All you can think about is when your next high is going to be and how long it will last. It’s a parasite, and you don’t care about anything else except getting it under control. That’s what happens when you’re possessed by the devil.
