Lorenzen Wright left the University of Memphis to pursue professional basketball in the NBA in 1996. Although some thought it wasn’t the best idea, Wright stayed in the draft and became the seventh overall pick of the Los Angeles Clippers. Wright was happy but sad at the same time. He was happy to be drafted, but sad because the Clippers’ lineage was a joke back in 1996.
Wright would play in the NBA for 13 seasons with the Sacramento Kings, Cleveland Cavaliers, Memphis Grizzlies, Atlanta Hawks, and Los Angeles Clippers, and would become a serviceable big man for whoever he played with. But on July 28, 2010, Wright’s body was found in a swampy field in Memphis after no one had heard from him since he went missing on July 18, 2010. Eventually, his ex-wife, Sherra Wright, pleaded guilty in 2019 of conspiring to have him killed. She is serving a 30-year sentence in Memphis.
