“Every time I took the court, I was angry” – How getting traded by the Warriors shaped Mitch Richmond’s mindset

 

Mitch Richmond walked into the then-Golden State Warriors GM Don Nelson’s Denver hotel room before the 1991–92 season opener. By that point, the trade rumors had been swirling long enough that he had a sense of what was coming. The Warriors guard, fresh off a playoff run with Run TMC, braced himself.

Nelson didn’t drag it out. Richmond was headed to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for the rights to Billy Owens.

Decades later, the six-time All-Star still remembers how hard it hit. At the time, it felt like an ending. It wasn’t. If anything, it reset the way he approached the game.

Richmond’s exit

Richmond entered the league as the fifth pick out of Kansas State in 1988. With the Dubs, he quickly clicked with Chris Mullin and helped bring Don Nelson’s small-ball vision to life. Tim Hardaway arrived a year later to complete Run TMC. The trio soon led the league in scoring and regularly treated fans to free pizza nights when they topped 120.

“Nellie was ahead of his time,” then-Warriors forward Rod Higgins said of the team’s pace, which packed Bay Area arenas.

They worked at it, too. Long sessions, often playing weighted two-on-two until Nelson finally shut it down. It paid off. 

In the 1991 NBA Playoffs, the Warriors upset the San Antonio Spurs by pulling opposing center David Robinson away from the paint. For a moment, they looked like a team with real title upside. That was before falling to the Los Angeles Lakers in the next round.

 

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