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Police: Ex-NBA Player Wright Shot to Death

By Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jul 30th 2010 10:13AM
Filed under: Basketball

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Former NBA player Lorenzen Wright, the man whose body was found in the woods, was shot to death, according to police. His death is being treated as a homicide.

Wright was said to be carrying a great deal of cash with him, when he disappeared this week. He also reportedly sold a car to a man who is allegedly affiliated with a drug cartel.

Wright disappeared in the middle of the night, after leaving the home of his ex-wife. His body was found in Southeast Memphis. Police say that a 911 call came from Wright's phone on the night he was killed.

Records show that Wright told the FBI that he sold two cars to Bobby Cole, a man who'd been indicted for selling drugs. Cole is connected to the group run by Craig Petties, a man who'd been charged with racketeering and conspiracy in six different homicides.

Although Wright said that the vehicles he sold to Cole did not belong to him, one was still in his name. The other was in the name of Allwright Automotive Inc., the name of Wright's company. In federal court documents, Wright admitted to owning the cars but said he didn't know that the vehicles were used in committing a crime. The vehicles were forfeited in a default judgment issued in March 2010.

The murder of Lorenzen Wright seems to weave the tangled web that some of us thought might exist beneath the surface. Most people's lives are not as simple as they appear to be, and I wondered if there might have been more to the sudden death of a man who appeared to be in serious financial trouble: Two of Wright's homes were repossessed this year, in spite of the riches he'd earned as an NBA player.

Unfortunately, the stories of NBA players going broke are all too common these days.

The teachable moment in the death of Lorenzen Wright is multidimensional. First, black males must learn the importance of carefully choosing their associates. It's not enough for you to do the right thing yourself. You must also be aware of the activities of those around you.

The culture of drugs, guns and other self-destructive behavior that continues to plague the black male in America has a spillover effect on to those who happen to be law-abiding citizens. So when I speak to young men I work with, I remind them to be mindful of those they choose as their friends.

Many men have gone to prison or been killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - a friend of mine was stabbed this week by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of the woman he was dating. He had no idea that the person had been stalking him.

The second lesson to be learned from this experience is a financial one. If it is the case that Wright was engaged in the act of selling his assets to criminals and also willing to leave the assets in his name, I wouldn't be surprised if his financial troubles played a role in his decision to take money from the first person to offer it. When you're having financial problems, it's hard to say no to anyone offering tens of thousands of dollars.

I would argue that our blatant addiction to status symbols and material possessions at the expense of our financial security is one of the great hurdles for the black community. Athletes (and many of those in the black middle class) find their way to easy riches and end up replicating many hip-hop artists who do every irresponsible thing with their money that they can possibly think of.

Years later, we are plagued with tax problems, bankruptcy, and all the other ills that come from being overleveraged. What's worse, because many athletes are encouraged to trade their educational future for athletic achievement, they don't even have a career to fall back on when they are broke. Perhaps there's a point where we can choose to modify this pattern.

As I told my daughter this week:

Everything in life has an intergenerational cycle. Many of us make the unconscious decision to continue the cycle or we can make the conscious decision to break the cycle.

So whether we're talking about child abuse in the black community or the prison and murder-laced, anti-intellectual culture of the African-American male, it is ultimately within our capability to choose whether our children are going to be different or turn themselves into statistics.

This is, of course, with all due respect to Lorenzen Wright, who seemed to be a good person to everyone he met, but like so many other black males in America, his life became flooded with the same problems that continue to plague us all.

May he rest in peace.



Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the Athlete Liberation and Academic Reform Movement (ALARM). To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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