Personal information | |||||||||||||
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Born |
Oxford, Mississippi |
November 4, 1975||||||||||||
Died | July 19, 2010 (aged 34) Memphis, Tennessee |
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Nationality | American | ||||||||||||
Listed height | 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) | ||||||||||||
Listed weight | 255 lb (116 kg) | ||||||||||||
Career information | |||||||||||||
High school |
Booker T. Washington (Memphis, Tennessee) |
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College | Memphis (1994–1996) | ||||||||||||
NBA draft | 1996 / Round: 1 / Pick: 7th overall | ||||||||||||
Selected by the Los Angeles Clippers | |||||||||||||
Playing career | 1996–2009 | ||||||||||||
Position | Power forward / Center | ||||||||||||
Number | 55, 42 | ||||||||||||
Career history | |||||||||||||
1996–1999 | Los Angeles Clippers | ||||||||||||
1999–2001 | Atlanta Hawks | ||||||||||||
2001–2006 | Memphis Grizzlies | ||||||||||||
2006–2008 | Atlanta Hawks | ||||||||||||
2008 | Sacramento Kings | ||||||||||||
2008–2009 | Cleveland Cavaliers | ||||||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||
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Career NBA statistics | |||||||||||||
Points | 6,191 (7.9 ppg) | ||||||||||||
Rebounds | 4,943 (6.3 rpg) | ||||||||||||
Assists | 622 (0.8 apg) | ||||||||||||
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com | |||||||||||||
Medals
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Lorenzen Vern-Gagne Wright (November 4, 1975 – July 19, 2010) was an American professional basketball player who played thirteen seasons in the National Basketball Association.
Raised in Oxford, Mississippi, Wright played all levels of basketball in Memphis – high school, collegiate and professional. Wright was selected a Third Team All-America by the Associated Press as a sophomore at the University of Memphis.
After being selected seventh overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in the 1996 NBA Draft out of the University of Memphis, Wright moved on to the Atlanta Hawks in 1999. He was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001, but returned to the Hawks in 2006.
On February 16, 2008, he was involved in a multi-player trade, going from Atlanta to Sacramento for Mike Bibby.
He held career averages of 8.0 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, playing in 778 (793 including playoffs) NBA games over 13 seasons.
Wright founded the Sierra Simone Wright Scholarship Fund after the death of his infant daughter in March 2003. During the summer of 2003, he returned to the University of Memphis to finish his degree. His father Herb was a professional basketball player who competed in Finland. He was survived by his parents and six children.
During his first stint in Atlanta, Wright and three other Memphis-native NBA players (Todd Day, Penny Hardaway and Elliot Perry) provided financial assistance to Travis Butler, a Memphis orphan whose tragic story garnered national attention.
Wright was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and was initiated in spring 1996 to the Kappa Beta Chapter.
Wright left his ex-wife's home in Collierville, Tennessee on July 18, 2010, and was not seen or heard from again. His family filed a missing persons report on July 22. After Wright's body was found on July 28 in a wooded area on Callis Cutoff Road just west of Hacks Cross Road, it was reported that a 9-1-1 call had been received from his cell phone in the early morning of July 19 by the Germantown, Tennessee 911 dispatch center; the caller was speaking with the dispatcher when gunshots rang out. The case is being investigated as a homicide. Wright's body is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee. As of 2017, the case remains unsolved because the emergency call was not traced and diverted properly.