Friday, November 13, 2015

A Tragic End For A Former Wildcat


Former New York Knicks draft pick Michael Wright was found dead in Brooklyn on Tuesday, he was 35 years old. His death has been listed as serious head trauma and is being treated as homicide. He was found in the back seat of his Lexus SUV covered with black garbage bags.

He had been reported missing by his roommate on November 5th with residents of the neighborhood where he was found saying the SUV has been parked on the street since November 8th.

Wright is a University of Arizona product and was starting forward of the Arizona team that made it to the 2001 National Finals against Duke. He was selected in the second round of the 2001 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks but he never played in the NBA instead playing in Europe, Israel, South Korea and Turkey.

This is the second time a University of Arizona basketball player met a tragic ending in the past 15 years. In 2002 Brian Williams, who changed his name to Bison Dele during his NBA career, was presumed murdered in July 2002 by his brother while on a boat in the South Pacific.

Because Wright never played in the NBA he only has a couple of cards with most depicting him in his University of Arizona uniform. He has a couple of autographs from SAGE and HIT and even with his passing they can still be picked up for $6-8 each.

2 comments:

  1. That's sad. My friend attended University of Arizona right around that time and often had classes with the basketball players. I'll have to see if she knew either of these guys.

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  2. I was sad to learn about this. Actually saw it covered on the local news because we live close enough that we get the NYC news. My records show only two cards of him in my collection, that one and a parallel from Hardcourt serially numbered to 25. 2015 has seen more people in the NBA die than any other year...ever.

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