LARRY WRIGHT - 101 Greats of European Basketball

The man with
two rings
During the 1970s and 1980s, most of
the European clubs signed foreigners
who were big men, power forwards
or centers, most of them American.
The FIBA regulations allowed for two
non-national players, and since big
men were scarce in Europe, the solution was to try to
“fish” something from the American market. One of
the few exceptions was Banco di Roma, which in the
summer of 1982 had signed the best Italian coach
at the time, Valerio Bianchini, after he had been successful
with Cantu in the previous years. The first
thing that Bianchini decided to do was... sign a guard.
He went for Larry Wright, born November 23, 1954, in
Monroe, Louisiana. He was a player with five years of
experience in the NBA, first with the Washington Bullets
and then with the Detroit Pistons. Why a guard
and why Wright? Bianchini himself explained it to me:
“Before coaching Rome I spent three years in Cantu,”
he said. “We won several titles, including a European
title in 1981. One of the key pieces in that puzzle was
point guard Pierluigi Marzorati. Since I could not sign
him, I decided to take the risk and go for an American
guard. I had good reports about Larry through Darren
Dale, a then very well-known American agent, so we
offered Wright a contract. He doubted it a little and I
had to travel all the way to Monroe, his hometown, to
convince him.”
Time proved Bianchini – and his scouts – right. They
had seen great potential in Wright that the NBA could
not fully exploit. He previously enjoyed a great career of
three years at Grambling State University, with an average
25.4 points, a rookie of the year award of the Southwestern
Atlantic Conference. He was the best player in
the conference in 1976 and a two-time selection to the
NCAA all-small colleges team. He was drafted in 1976
and chosen 14th by the Bullets. Two years later, the
Bullets beat the Seattle Supersonics in the NBA Finals
(4-3) and Wright won his first title. His contribution in
those seven games was nothing to write home about.
He scored 6 points in the first game, 2 in the second,
5 in the fourth, 10 in the sixth and 2 in the seventh: 25
points total. His season average was 9.2 points and
3.7 assists, enough to let his potential be seen, but not
enough to convince his coach, Dick Motta, to give him
more minutes. He decided to move to the Pistons, but
in the 1980-81 season, his numbers didn’t increase: 7.4
points and 3.4 assists. The following season he hardly
played. Behind him, he had played in 343 NBA games,
averaging less than 20 minutes per game, 8.2 points,
3.4 assists and 1.6 rebounds. That’s when the Rome
offer arrived.
Taking over a title game
In a short span of time, all of Italy saw that Rome had
signed a great player. He was a scoring point guard, but
he also played shooting guard, something that Bianchini
used to perfection combining the roles of Wright
(22.2 points) and Enrico Gilardi (15.2). Banco di Roma,
the name of the team then, won its first and only Italian
League title and the following season it would make its
debut in the EuroLeague.
After easily rolling through the two preliminary
rounds against weak opponents (Dudelange of Luxem-
101 greats of european basketball
Larry Wright
W