A Perfect Fit

A PERFECT FIT

Copyright © 2010 by Luther Wright

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First Karen Hunter Publishing/Gallery Books trade paperback edition November 2010

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Designed by Renata Di Biase

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4165-7097-4

ISBN 978-1-4391-9510-9 (ebook)

CONTENTS

Foreword by Karen Hunter

Prologue

1 Opening Tap

2 Personal Foul

3 Hoop Dreams

4 Sandy

5 Please Don’t Stop the Music

6 Elizabeth, I’m Coming to Join You!

7 Decision Time

8 Down the Hall

9 More Money, More Problems

10 Rookie Blues

11 And All That Jazz

12 Out of Bounds

13 Blocked Shot

14 The Crack of Dawn

15 Falling through the Cracks

16 Fouled Out

17 You Are . . . Not the Father!

18 My God

19 No More Game

Afterword by Terry Cummings

FOREWORD

by Karen Hunter

I remember the first time I laid eyes on Luther Wright up close. I remember saying to myself, That’s the largest human being I have ever seen.

He was sixteen years old and already more than seven feet tall.

Luther was a junior at Elizabeth High School in New Jersey, and I was an up-and-coming sportswriter with the New York Daily News. High school sports was my beat at the time, and Luther Wright was one of the biggest names in basketball in the tristate area.

I covered his team for two straight seasons as they battled St. Anthony High School of Jersey City, which was one of the best high school teams in the entire nation.

I used to hate to have to interview Luther. As a reporter, one of the worst things in the world is to interview a one-word-answer subject. Luther was the king of the one-word answer—no matter what you asked him. Even when I would say, Can you elaborate? he would only say, You know.

He finally warmed up to me a bit and would give me better quotes than he gave most. But it felt as though I were trying to break through this enormous wall. There were rumors that Luther was slow. I often wondered if anyone was home.

But I later learned that Luther was very present. He was present, but he was mostly inside, hiding, looking for a place to be at peace.

On the outside, he sometimes seemed like a zombie. Even on the court, he appeared to be simply going through the motions. He had so much talent, so much potential. It wasn’t just that he was seven feet two inches tall; he also had an athletic frame, nice moves around the basket, and a silky touch. He could dunk and shoot the ten-foot jump shot, but he did it all with little emotion.

That’s why I was shocked the year he cried after his Elizabeth team won the Tournament of Champions—New Jersey’s version of the Final Four, where the best teams from every division came together to settle who was indeed the best in the state. He cried like a baby.

I didn’t know it at the time, but so much was behind those tears.

Like many who covered him, I had my opinions about him. I had him all pegged. Like many who covered him (and many who hung around him), I was wrong.

When he went to Seton Hall and I moved on to covering crime for the News, I would still keep an eye on him. I liked him. Something in his smile, which he didn’t give too often, held more than I could imagine.

I once asked Luther, whom I would see with one of several girlfriends after a game over the couple of years I covered him, why he always went out with such short girls. His girlfriends would all hover around the five-foot mark.

I don’t want my kids to be big, he said.

That was a clue. This young man, for whom the entire world seemed to be waiting to shower with fame and fortune, didn’t want that for a child of his own. This seven-foot-two-inch frame came with a burden that all of those who envied him could not see. When he told me that, I understood. For the first time I looked at him—beyond the height and the basketball glory—and I saw a young man who wasn’t happy. I saw someone who seemed trapped in this huge body that everybody seemed to want a piece of—from college coaches and potential agents, from girls to guys who wanted to be popular just by being around him.

Still, it was in basketball, with its accolades, cheering fans, groupies, and love, where Luther found stability and a home. But in 1996 it was all taken away. Actually, in a wave of self-destruction, Luther Wright threw it away. He was cut from the Utah Jazz, where he might have made a tremendous impact playing alongside Karl Malone and John Stockton. Luther went on a rampage that landed him in a mental hospital. His life spiraled into a wave of escapism. It started, even before his being drafted into the National Basketball Association, with marijuana and alcohol and women, then progressed under the pressures of being in the NBA to cocaine and then crack, leading to his release from the Utah Jazz in 1996.

I didn’t hear about Luther Wright again until 2007, when an article appeared in the Star-Ledger.

The story began, Luther Wright lay on an operating table and listened to the sounds of a surgeon cutting two frostbitten toes off his right foot.

On the operating table that day, he lost two digits, but gained his soul. In that moment, as he heard pieces of his body being amputated, Luther Wright made a decision to change his life.

This is Luther’s journey from growing up on the mean streets of Jersey City, never quite fitting in with peers, and sometimes even his family, to being a household name in his hometown with a multimillion-dollar NBA contract . . . to losing it all. His journey from a mansion in Utah to homelessness, feeding a crack addiction in Newark, New Jersey, is one for the ages.

But his overcoming it all is even more incredible.

Inspiring? Understatement.

Prologue

Ping. Ping.

It seemed to happen so quickly. I was on this gurney in an operating room of UMDNJ (University of Medicine and Dentistry Hospital in Newark, New Jersey). They had me numbed from the waist down and I was shot full of painkillers. But I was fully awake. I couldn’t feel a thing as they cut off the toe next to my big toe on my right foot. I only felt a little pressure. And I didn’t feel any pain when they cut off the toe next to that one, right down to the last knuckle. But the sound those toes made hitting the metal pan will haunt me forever.

Ping. Ping.

That was a part of me that I will never get back.

How had I let it get this bad?

More than two toes were being cut off that day. As I lay on that gurney, listening to them amputate my toes, high on whatever they gave me, I was more sober than I had been in years. This was the first time in a long time that I wanted to do something different with my life. For the past two years, I had been roaming the streets, homeless, getting high every single day or hustling to get money to get high. I didn’t care about anything or anybody. I didn’t want to hear from anybody. I just wanted to get high.

But as I lay on that gurney, listening to my body parts being cut off, I started to care about me. I was angry with myself for letting it get this bad.

When I thought about everything I had—money, a nice home, cars, women—and how I just let it all go . . . I didn’t want those things back. I wanted me back.

With the eighteenth pick in the 1993 NBA draft, the Utah Jazz select Luther Wright. . . .

I was sitting in the Palace of Detroit, the home of the Pistons. I was sitting at a table with my mother, my stepfather, my agent (Sal DiFazio), and one of my boys from around my way. I was one of the few, the select few, invited to the draft. They only invited those expected to go at the top of the first round, and for those, like me, the NBA paid for them and their families to fly out. The NBA puts us up, fed us, and treated us like royalty.

It was a crazy draft. This was the year that most of Michigan’s Fab 5, which made it to the NCAA Finals (when Chris Webber called that time-out), were coming out. Chris went No. 1 to the Orlando Magic, then was traded to the Golden State Warriors for Penny Hardaway, who went at No. 3. Shawn Bradley, who was bigger than I was at seven feet six inches (I never thought I would be looking up to anyone like that), went to Philly with the No. 2 pick. Also going in the first round were my boys Terry Dehere (No. 13 to the Clippers) and Bobby Hurley (No. 7 to Sacramento).

We made history that year. Terry, Bobby, and I were all from Jersey City. We all went to the same high school (St. Anthony) for one year. We all played on the same AAU team. And we were all drafted in the first round of the NBA in the same year. That had never happened before and has never happened since.

It was exciting sitting there. I didn’t even mind that I was the last one of my crew to get picked. I was just happy to be there.

I was in the NBA.

When David Stern called my name, I jumped up. Kissed my mother, hugged my stepfather, gave a pound to Sal and my boy, and marched up to the stage to get my hat.

Welcome to the NBA. Congratulations, Stern said.

But I’m sure he says that to every player drafted. I smiled for my photo with the commish and I met up with my family to celebrate.

That night Chris Webber threw a big party at the Fox. I took my man Christopher Garland, aka Sabree, and we drank and smoked and hung out with the girlies. I was on top of the world.

I had it all. I was excited about what was about to happen to me. At the same time, I was oblivious. I had no idea what was coming.

I went home and packed my stuff, and a day later I was on a plane to Utah with Sal to sign my contract and get ready for rookie camp. I had never been to Utah before. I couldn’t even tell you where it was on the map. I had no idea and I didn’t really care. All I knew was that I was going to play in the NBA.

When they called my name, I can’t say that I wasn’t disappointed. I thought I was going to be drafted by the New Jersey Nets. I just knew it. I had worked out for New Jersey. Willis Reed, the NBA great who was the general manager of the Nets, came in personally to watch me work out. I had a workout with Charles Shackleford and Jayson Williams—two of their star big men. I was all ready to suit up for the Nets and play for my home crowd, my fans, the same people who had supported me when I was playing for St. Anthony, Elizabeth High School, my AAU team, and Seton Hall University. Why wouldn’t Jersey take me? It was a no-brainer.

But with the No. 16 pick, New Jersey took Rex Walters, a guard from Kansas. That summer, the Nets lost their star guard, Drazen Petrovic, in Germany in a car accident in which he was decapitated. So they needed a shooting guard and Rex Walters fit the bill.

I was told that Utah needed me. Their center Mark Eaton was gone, and I would be that final piece for Stockton and Malone to finally win a championship.

I had never really followed Utah or Stockton and Malone. I knew who they were, but I wasn’t a fan and I couldn’t tell you anything about them outside of their names. But here I was going to play with them.

As we were landing in Utah, I looked out of my window and could see snow-covered mountains. This was in the summer but they had snow. I thought that was cool. The whole city just looked clean and nice.

Then reality set in: "You have to live here!"

I had never lived anywhere but Jersey and was never more than ten minutes away from my mother’s home.

In the hotel lobby, I noticed that I didn’t see any black people, just whites and Mexicans. I started thinking, What a country-ass town. I saw people with cowboy hats and cowboy boots. Where am I? Utah. I found out it was run by the Mormons and they had their own set of rules. Rules I had no intention of following.

After I checked into the hotel, I