Lorenzen Wright missing since Sunday

[lethalweapon3]

Good article from 1996 on his father Herb (who I understand has not yet conceded his son is actually "missing"):

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-01-30/sports/9601300036_1_father-and-son-rec-center-herb-wright

The father and son had a great time in the summer of 1983, working together around the father's Memphis home, shoveling gravel and pouring concrete and building fences and fixing up old cars, and always, always finding time for basketball.

Lorenzen was just 10, but already he was emulating his father, a former junior college star who was playing in Finland and dreaming of the NBA. He joined his father for long jogs, going as far as his young legs could carry him. Then they would go to the rec center where his father worked and where Lorenzen started learning the rudiments of the game.

This was a wondrous time for father and son, but this summer, like all summers, finally would end. The father drove his son down to his mom's home in Oxford, Miss., and returned to Memphis and his job at that rec center.

The next day, in Oxford, Lorenzen blithely began his new school year, and in Memphis a group of wise guys dropped by the rec center. They got themselves a game against a team that included Lorenzen's sister and aunt, and the more they found themselves outclassed, the angrier and more fractious those wise guys grew. Finally, having seen and heard enough, Herb Wright reacted.

"Get out," he told the wise guys.

"That's all right. We'll be back," one of them snarled.

They would come back that night with guns and bad intentions. Just before they arrived, Herb heard they were on their way. Got to get to a phone, he thought, and he hurried toward the rec center's back door and the phone he knew was in an nearby building.

But the wise guys were there as he burst through the back door. As he ran for help, there came a shot that flew by him. Still he ran, but a second shot did not miss.

"He tried to get up," Lorenzen says, "but he couldn't. He crawled to the side of a car. He was trying to get up and a guy pulled up and told him, `You've been shot.' "

"I knew I had to be paralyzed because I couldn't feel my legs," Herb remembers.

The father and son wouldn't see each other again for four months, wouldn't face each other again until the father drove to Oxford in a specially equipped van to bring his son home for the Christmas holidays. Herb, indeed, was paralzyed and facing his future from a wheelchair.

"But," Lorenzen remembers, "he didn't let it get him down, so I wasn't going to let it get me down. He just told me what had happened, and that he was going to dedicate himself more to my basketball and teaching me how to play. Seeing him be so strong, I thought I could handle anything."

"I let him know," Herb says, "that, `Hey, this can happen to you. It can happen to anybody. You never know what's going to happen down the line. But it's no reason to throw your hands up and quit.'

"What if I'd thrown my hands up and quit? He might not be doing what he's doing today."

Now the son is a 6-foot-11-inch star and the father is the women's basketball coach at Shelby State Community College, the school for which he played when he was a 6-6 forward and the nation's best junior college rebounder. But those are just cold facts, hardly able to capture the very special relationship between this father and son.

~lw3

[Blunt91]

Still no news, but in the interim, what is with Lo's middle name? Somebody was a big pro wrestling fan, I suppose?

~lw3

I had never noticed his middle name until you pointed it out. I guess either Mom or Dad loved some AWA wrestling.

Edited July 26, 2010 by Blunt91

[Seano]

Wow, first I've heard of this. I really hope he just needed to get completely away from everyone or something, and that wherever he is he's physically ok.

I hope this doesn't end up tragically like the Bison Dele story. I actually ran into him several times back when I was working in a very high end natural foods grocery store in Denver in 1993 or 1994, though back then he was still Brian Williams, prior to changing his name to honor his Cherokee heritage. He was a really cool guy, and unmistakable. I mean he was freaking huge, and ripped. 6-11, 280, a really good looking dude with these crazily cool electric green eyes. He and I kind of hit it off, as I made him laugh when I was struggling to fill up these bulk bins that were way high up, and here I am about 5'9, and then I turn around and there's this ginormous man standing there, so I asked jokingly if he wouldn't mind giving me a hand, and he laughed and he actually did it, and we'd shoot the breeze whenever he'd come in after that. He was a really trippy dude, truly individualistic and a true iconoclast, and really, REALLY smart. You don't find many basketball players you could call intellectuals, but he was one all the way, though he would never be so pretentious as to admit that. He was extremely educated and well-read, and he just lived his life to the fullest and did what he wanted to do no matter what anyone else might think or say. He'd ride his bike from Denver to Phoenix or Salt Lake City. He went to Europe and toured the continent with nothing more than a backpack on his back. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona. He toured India and Indonesia and Southeast Asia for months on end and all alone. He dated Madonna, for gods sake. And then he walked away from the NBA and left $36 million on the table because he'd simply had enough.

And then he disappeared while sailing near Tahiti, with his brother, his girlfriend and the boat's French captain. They went missing for several weeks, and the boat was presumed lost at sea with all hands on board, but then was piloted back into Tahiti by Brian's brother, who was alone on board and concocted some utterly bullsh*t story about a freak wave and an accident at sea in which the three other people including his brother were washed overboard and lost- but the reality was that he killed them and dumped their bodies in the South Pacific, never to be found of course. And then he went on the lam, fleeing French authorities, US authorities, and Interpol, and ended up in Mexico, where he took a drug overdose, went comatose, and died several weeks later in a San Diego hospital without ever regaining consciousness. It was a crazy story, like a movie almost, but it was real. And having met, spoken to, and interacted with Brian personally about 6-8 times over the course of that summer, it hit me very hard. Such a unique individual and such a cool person, to have his life snuffed out so suddenly and senselessly like that, what can ya say. It is just a sickening and terrible shame.

Anyhow, wow did I go off-topic. This story just made me think of Brian for some reason. I just really hope Lorenzen's ok. We don't need any more tragic stories, thank you very much.

[AHF]

The Bison Dele story was crazy. I hope nothing like that happens to Wright and that he returns safely to his family.

[JJFAN4LF]

A body was found in Southeast Memphis, no confirmation if it's Lorenzen's body....

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jul/28/body-found-memphis-police-lorenzen-wright/

[Eddielives]

A body was found in Southeast Memphis, no confirmation if it's Lorenzen's body....

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jul/28/body-found-memphis-police-lorenzen-wright/

Aw crap. This doesn't sound good at all.

[niremetal]

Aw crap. This doesn't sound good at all.

Yeah. I can't imagine that cops find bodies of 6'10 or taller guys too often...prayers to the family of whoever it is, even if it turns out not to be Lorenzen.

[pimp]

Aw crap. This doesn't sound good at all.

:sad:

[Deeman]

Hearing reports of a suicide.

[pimp]

Hearing reports of a suicide.

Why would he call 911 and hang up, if it was suicide?

[WraithSentinel]

Don't want to say suicide. When you hear he leave in the middle of the night and then start hearing of his financial problems. It start looking like it. I will wait for more info though before coming to that conclusion.

[GameTime]

http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story/Source-Lorenzen-Wright-Found-Dead-in-Southeast/2mTkdqqd7UOSIrzrER_jRQ.cspx

Wow.

His family is in my prayers.

[capstone21]

http://www.myeyewitn...IrzrER_jRQ.cspx

Wow.

His family is in my prayers.

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/68416/20100728/report_lorenzen_wright_found_dead/

RIP Lo Wright

[IHeartAtlanta]

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/68416/20100728/report_lorenzen_wright_found_dead/

RIP Lo Wright

R.I.P. Lorenzen Wright :helpsmilie:

[HawkItus]

RIP LO. People money is not the end all be all. Life is more precious than a bank account.

[HawksFan87]

Oh wow. RIP. You never know what folks are going through these days.

[DjGrizz]

So sad. One of the nicer Hawks I've ever met. Rip

[99PROBL3MS]

The yahoo sports story. RIP LO

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Body-of-Lorenzen-Wright-found-near-Memphis-TN?urn=nba-258871

[Seano]

Oh jeez that's horrible. Really, it makes me feel like crying. The finality of it all, and to die so utterly alone like that, with all those hopes and dreams he had as a child and as a man gone just like that, and with his family and friends and loved ones left behind shattered, to try and pick up the pieces of their lives, because that's the only thing they can do. He won't be coming back. It is wrenchingly sad, and it's a hard, hard world. I feel for all of them and pray for them all and wish to god Lorenzen hadn't submitted to that darkness. I wish he'd had a friend who would have just slapped the sh*t out of him and reminded him of his children and his mother and of the little boy Lorenzen with that head full of dreams, and that the dreams weren't over yet, and that he was still a young man with years and years ahead of himself, and that hope still lives unless and until you allow it to die, and so you fight to keep it living, and you keep on fighting and fighting and fighting and never give up and never let it go. Never, never let the darkness win.

It's such an act of nihilism that it literally takes my breath away, how dark and how alone that must be, to just give up on everything and end your life itself. It's terrifying to consider how dark and awful that state must be. There's not even anything to say, except God be with them all.

[Dnice]

Very sad, prayers go out to the Wright family.