He was called "Sugar Ray". It was said he had the potential to have been a better basketball player than Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson. Ex-Detroit Piston Isiah Thomas said Sugar "owned" him.
But the question is, Whatever Happened To Micheal Ray?
THE STORY
In this documentary about the life of would-be phenom Micheal Ray Richardson, clips of Richard Pryor's concert in which he talked about how freebasing cocaine almost killed him, sets the scene for narrator Chris Rock's observation that the late 1970s and early 1980's was a time "after Star Wars and before the Drug Wars". This was the period in which "Sugar Ray" started to make his mark on the world of professional basketball, and his ascension into that world is recalled by coaches, players, and friends. The documentary implies that due to his being a "country bumpkin" in a city and on a team of bona fide "playas" like Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Micheal Ray was as much as doomed to fall prey to the excesses afforded to him; what started out as "social drug use" in New York soon blossomed to all-out addiction after he was traded to the Golden State Warriors, and as his drug use increased, his basketball skills decreased.
Those excesses - the partying, lack of dedication to developing his skills, and especially the drugs - eventually led to his becoming the first "victim" of the NBA's strict "three strikes" policy on illegal drug use: having failed three successive drugs tests, he was banned from the NBA for life.
THE UPSHOT
I have a few confessions to make, in my highly-opinionated fashion, right from jump. One, other than having an unhealthy crush on Clyde "The Glide" Drexler [remind me to tell you the story one day of how I put myself in great jeopardy by cheering "go Clyde!" for him when I went to a Lakers/Trailblazers game with my husband. In Los Angeles. Sorry, digressing again.] and a passing interest in slam-dunk competitions, sports in general, and basketball specifically, bores me silly. Two, though I have little interest in sports, I have a great deal of interest on the topic of the sheer hypocrisy of the current treatment of colleges-as-minor-leagues (though no one in the NCAA has the cajones to admit it) for pro football and basketball leagues. And third, the current War On [Some] Drugs in the United States, is a losing cause that would be funny, if it wasn't so devastatingly serious.
So it should come as no surprise that, when those three worlds collided in the documentary of Micheal Ray Richardson - "The true story of an NBA legend's rise to glory and fall from grace" - I expected to have a lot to sink my teeth into when writing this review. But to my great disappointment, I find that I really don't; the documentary left me with more questions than answers, many of which could and should have been answered in the allotted time given to it.
One thing that immediately came to mind is, why did Chris Rock narrate this? His narration distracted from the story; his cadence sounded as if he was reading lines from a script, and his speaking in the first person ("I wondered if I'd ever see him play again"), only added more confusion on top of an already-jumbled telling of this story. The music also seemed misplaced; almost always playing in the background as if it was a soundtrack, it rarely matched the images that were shown. I had to scratch my head, too, at the way the story was laid out: starting at the middle (his being drafted by the New York Knicks), it leads fairly quickly to his early spiral into the life of a New York City Celebrity, and from there goes, inexplicably, to the "beginning" of his story - his high school years - only to bounce back to his trade to the New Jersey Nets. I had a tough time trying to keep up with what I guess I was supposed to be learning about him.
But the biggest stumbling block by far to the viewer having effective understanding of the rise and fall of Micheal Ray, was the rapid fire speed in which everything was relayed - and but nothing was really explained. Facts and factoids went by fast and furious, but one never got the feeling that any of these things meant much to those who were giving these facts and factoids; fitting, indeed, that these aspects of Sugar's life could've easily been flashed on screen as if they were game stats. For all the hoopla about how Sugar was such a great ball player, you got the uneasy impression that very few of the people involved - Chris Rock, admittedly a big fan of his, included - ever really knew him. Or for that fact, cared. This, of course, is likely a false impression; but, because of the speed reading way the "evidence" of Micheal Ray's life was presented, it was an easy one to get.
One thing that came through clearly in this documentation, was the thought that Micheal Ray had deep Abandonment Issues; having come from a "broken home" (he was close to his mother and siblings, but all that we are told of his father was that "he didn't have one"), he viewed his various college and pro coaches as father figures. When these "fathers" were fired, traded, or simply left, Micheal Ray had a hard time coping, and fell deeper into his drug dependency. While I certainly understand this, I also know that it's all too easy to excuse away these actions; I took personal affront at the convenient implication that lack-of-father-figure leads, of necessity, to doperhood for Black athletes. All one need do to counter that implication, is look in the ranks of the NBA, for players that haven't gone that route. And they are there; for every flashy, multi-millionaire hooper trashing his life (and the lives of those around him), I'd hazard to say that there are plenty of benchwarmers who do the right thing, day in and day out. But let me stop there before I really go off.
In the end, for all the facts and factoids, stats and figures, and repeated incidents of Micheal Ray's life that are presented on-screen in 45+ minutes, you walk away with the feeling that none of the many coaches, players, family members, or friends, have a clue about whatever happened to Micheal Ray - and worse, that they don't know how to prevent that "whatever" from happening to the next Sugar.
A BAMMER RANT
I remain nothing less than angry at how young Black men are used up - all too eagerly, on their part - by a pro sports system that chews them up and spits them out, unless they are blessed with the rare talents, strong work-ethic, good support system, and sheer luck of a Magic Johnson or a Michael Jordan. My anger extends to those young Black men who do little to prepare themselves for the harsh world other than wrap their hands around a basketball, without also wrapping their minds around a textbook or two, as if because of the Hard Knock Life they've had, the world owes them a birthright to be the next Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan. And, hypocrisy of the War On [Some] Drugs or no, I am angrier still at the ease with which so many of these athletes throw away the fortune and opportunities that they have, putting it up their nose or in their veins, while working stiffs like you and I continue to support their habits - like it or not, we do - by paying highway robbery prices for sports tickets, basketball shoes, etcetera etcetera etcetera. It is a sad joke that should have ended when the first sports star became hooked on his own excess, or killed by his own stupidity. But we keep paying them, and they keep playing, and some of them keep ruining their lives...
...and the beat goes on.
BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE
The stats that I was sent on Micheal Ray's career were impressive - as were the "notable quotables" by the likes of Mike Glenn, Isiah Thomas, and Magic Johnson, praising the abilities of "the contenda" that Sugar could've been. But they're not enough to make a viewer - especially one who, like me, never knew who he was in the first place - feel anything more than vague interest in the man behind the story being presented. It speaks to the "empty" feeling of this documentary that of all the people that spoke of the wasted potential of Micheal "Sugar Ray" Richardson, only his mother, and Hubie Brown, spoke more than the standard "ooh, he was cool!" lines than did most of the other folks interviewed. Maybe Bryant Gumbel's RealSports would've done Richardson's story - his whole story - more justice. And sadly because of its lack of emotional impact, this glorified "Just Say No" public service announcement, will probably fall on deaf ears for the b-ballers who most need to internalize it.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MICHEAL RAY?:
Even after watching, I still wonder.
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