HE ARRIVED 18 minutes late for practice on Monday, standing alone on the baseline in his sweats. Ostensibly, his tardiness was due to a case of the flu. Nevertheless, it didn't look good. Nothing Luther Wright did during his brief career with the Utah Jazz ended up looking good.
After 16 tumultuous months with the Jazz, Wright was waived, Thursday, prompting a collective sigh of relief from teammates, management and fans. The Jazz's worst public relations problem since John Drew was finally gone. And with him went $1.3 million of the Jazz's money - the remaining amount guaranteed on his contract.The Wright experiment underscored the problem of competing in the NBA these days. Desperate for big men of the future, the Jazz took a risk on a 7-foot-2, 300-pound question mark. He was, admittedly, a project. But he had an enormous body and soft hands - an enviable combination for any center.
Soon to follow, though, were the problems. Heart palpitations kept him from attending training camp his rookie year. He missed a team flight and was fined the cost of a plane ticket. He missed several weight lifting sessions and was fined and suspended a game.
Wright was a child in a grown-up body. He played drums with the Houston Rockets pep band and tried bringing a puppy on an airplane. He once sent a ball boy to a nearby deli to get him a sandwich as the team waited in the locker room for a game in New York.
The stories of Wright could be funny, if they weren't sad. He once asked a reporter about getting his name on the JumboTron for the "Quote of the Day." He talked of becoming a rap star if he didn't didn't make it in basketball.
Wright's world began to collapse when he was discovered last winter at a rest stop in Tooele County, yelling and banging on garbage cans. He told police he was high on marijuana and the prescription drug Ritalin. He entered a rehabilitation center and was treated for Attention Deficit Disorder and manic depression, which explained much of Wright's erratic behavior.
But medical and psychological problems weren't the only reasons for Wright's failure. Once he received treatment, Wright should have put his career together. But he never understood the level of committment necessary to play in the NBA - at least not on a team whose greatest stars, John Stockton and Karl Malone, have missed only eight games between them in their careers. While Malone lifted weights an hour before practice, Wright was at the audio store, checking out the latest CD equipment. He struggled to keep in shape, yet was prone to clambering on the Jazz team bus eating donuts or ice cream.
That the Jazz would cut Wright on the eve of the first game of the season was no surprise - except that they didn't do it sooner. Many in the organization favored cutting Wright last winter. But the Jazz stayed with him in what they say was an attempt to help rebuild his career and his life. However, when he arrived for the 1994 training camp, it was still the same out-of-shape Wright they knew before.
Wright lost the confidence of teammates long ago. Privately they joked about his lack of committment. "Loobee" as they called him, became an example of a player who simply didn't understand.
Two weeks before Wright's much-publicized incident near Tooele last January, a Jazz player told one reporter, "You guys are too nice. A lot of other markets in the NBA, they would have taken Luther Wright apart. He hasn't done anything since coming here."
When Wright finally made the papers, it was for all the wrong reasons.
In one sense, Wright was simply a player unable to realize the chance he squandered; another victim of a system where a 21-year-old with unproven skills can become a multi-millionaire before knowing how to balance a checkbook. The Jazz felt they could ill afford to pass on the chance to get a large center that would be with the franchise for years.
But the plans never materialized. Wright left the team Thursday, as far away as ever from being an NBA player.
Perhaps Wright's stay with the Jazz wasn't a total loss. At least now he may understand it takes more than a big body and a guaranteed contract to play in the NBA. Wright was no more prepared to compete in the NBA than to pilot a space shuttle.
And the Jazz were reminded once again of the dangers of signing questionable players to big contracts, and hoping they some day grow up.