“I’m Not a BUM”

There are certainly members of the Washington Wizards, given the team’s current state, who deserve a good booing. But Mitch Richmond isn’t one of them. We say we want professional athletes to suck it up and play hurt, to justify the millions they make by giving us what they’ve got, damn the consequences. Well, that’s what Richmond has been doing these first few weeks of the NBA season, and here’s where it’s gotten him: booed and benched.

A dozen years into a distinguished career, these aren’t the kinds of firsts Richmond is looking for. He’d never been booed in his home arena until the second quarter of a recent incomprehensible loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. He had never been benched for any reason until Coach Gar Heard decided at halftime to start rookie Richard Hamilton in place of Richmond to begin the third quarter. This is only the second time in Richmond’s career he’s had an injury serious enough to drive him nuts. To make it all worse, he’s in the second season in a new town where he hasn’t had time to build up much goodwill or show the form that made him a six-time NBA all-star and two-time Olympian, and he’s now the highest-paid shooting guard in the league at $10 million this season.

“It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through,” he said. “It’s hard . . . It’s really tough. The boos . . . Wow . . . I know, they’re passing judgment only on what they see now, and it isn’t good, but man . . . “

What we all see is a career 46% shooter hitting only 33% this season, a 23-point per game scorer averaging nine this season. That’s not a slump, it’s a free fall. It’s not just the boos Richmond hears, it’s the wondering out loud whether at 34, he’s been a workhorse for so many years it’s possible that time plus wear and tear have diminished his skills. Of the great players in this generation, we generally regard Karl Malone and Michael Jordan as the biggest workhorses. Jordan averaged 38.58 minutes per game, Malone has averaged 37.43 per game, Richmond 37.53 per game on teams with less help than Jordan and Malone. So, after the Philly game, ice bags tapped to both knees, I asked Richmond if that’s possible, if the wear and tear of a long career with bad teams is breaking him down here and now.

“When you’re down, a lot creeps into your thinking,” he said. “But I have to keep pushing that away, pushing it away . . . I don’t know exactly how I’ll get through this . . . I hear the comments. But I’m not a bum.”

It’s a sad day when Richmond has to remind anyone of that. Not a bum? He’s been a great player from Day 1, even if folks on the east coast couldn’t appreciate him night after night as he played out a career in Oakland and Sacramento that left most of us with just second-day boxscores and selected late-night clips. How good must you be to be one of Jordan’s favorite players? His peers call him “Rock” because he is. He’s been the NBA’s Walter Payton in some respects, playing his heart out for bad teams, never complaining, making himself indispensable, endearing himself to coaches and teammates and fans at home and on the road.

It’s those very traits that might have betrayed Richmond. Fact is, he shouldn’t have played opening night. It’s not just the right hamstring, which we all knew about; it’s the left knee with acute tendonitis and a calcium deposit. Most people with acute tendonitis couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without great difficulty. I know. I’ve got it. Richmond wouldn’t talk publicly about the knee, but when pressed on the matter late Tuesday said, “I’ve been to every health store in town, trying everything.”

Before the season opener two weeks ago, I asked Richmond why in the world he was trying to play. Toughness isn’t something he has to prove. Still, he said, “I have to. I just have to.”

Asked whether signing that big contract made him feel he had to play, even though he shouldn’t have, Richmond said, “Yeah, there’s that. But also, it’s because of the way I worked all summer to get ready for this season. I was so really prepared for this season . . . You can always second guess yourself when the team is [losing] and you’re playing like I’m playing. If I had it to do all over again . . . yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have [played]. But I’ve only been injured once in my career [1992-93] when I had a broken thumb. The team needed to get going, and I feel it’s my job to get out there and give what I had. I knew I didn’t have my rhythm. But I felt, I’m still one of the better two-guards in the league; if I can’t get the team 25, I’ll get us 18.”

With one healthy leg, the bet here is Richmond would get his 18. With two bad legs, there’s no lift, no explosion, no foundation from which to lauch an accurate jump shot. Richmond is one of those veteran players who is big on listening, on seeking input from people who have known him since he came into the league. He invites advice from Rod Higgins, his former teammate who is now an assistant with Golden State, from Wizard assistant Mike Bratz who was with Richmond for six years in Sacramento. How easy this would be if it was only about shooting, and not injury and perhaps even age. “This isn’t Mitch Richmond we’re seeing,” Heard said. How can his mentors help him fix this?

But Richmond soldiers on, more as professional as ever even in the kind of bad times he’s never experienced. When Heard told Richmond he was going to start Hamilton the second half against Philly, you know what Richmond said? He told his coach, “Gar I understand. I don’t like sitting, but you’ve got to try everything you can so we can pull out of this.”

On nights after games, Richmond has always sat and studied every nuance of the game’s box score, then gone home to watch late games on the satellite dish. He’s the definition of a basketball junkie. Except now, the frustration leaves him sitting at his locker in deep reflection. “I’ve got the dish, but it’s very difficult to even watch the games right now,” he said. “I have to turn it off. I come back and watch eventually, around 1 in the morning, but it’s so hard.”

Somebody asked him to grade his game right now, and Richmond said, “If I had even my B-game right now, we wouldn’t be 1-7. I won’t give myself an ‘F’ because I know how hard I’m trying. But a ‘D’ is probably a fair grade. There are two encouraging things, though. The first is, I felt better tonight than I have in weeks, both legs. And the other thing is I still believe I’m going to make the next shot. I still believe I’ve got the focus to get through this. Richard has given us a spark, and I’ll be supportive of whatever helps this team. But I have to find my game. I’ll find it.”