ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Before last weekend, his career highlight probably unfolded on March 11, 2016.
That was the night Dion Wright totaled 32 points and 15 rebounds in a valiant individual effort in the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team’s heartbreaking 90-86 overtime loss to Davidson in the Atlantic 10 Tournament quarterfinals.
For some, it might have actually happened a year earlier, when Wright notched 24 points on 10-of-11 shooting and nine boards in another stinging A-10 quarterfinal defeat, this one to Dayton.
By any measure, however — almost certainly even his own — those moments were knocked from the top spot by what transpired Saturday in front of a packed audience at King Drew Magnet School in Los Angeles. For Wright, that will forever be the day he squared off against all-time NBA great LeBron James.
BY MONDAY, the tale of how Wright ended up on the same court as James had become something of a national headline.
He appeared on the Pat McAfee Live show to talk about the experience. He was the lead to a story in the Orange County Register, which ran in Monday’s Times Herald. He went viral on social media, both for being the unknown who was having an understandably tough time guarding the best player in the world and for making the most of his opportunity.
It was a tale, however, marked by Bona ties, familiar names and multiple “Go Bonnies” chants from McAfee and deserves to be retold here.
Wright had already flown to Western New York to begin preparing with the Bona alumni team for The Basketball Tournament. His plan was to spend the weekend in Toronto with former teammate Nelson Kaputo before heading to campus for a four-day training camp. But that all changed when, late Friday night, while sleeping, he got a call from high school companion and Drew League teammate Mike Nwabuzor:
James was set to play in the South Central pro-am league the next day, against, of all squads, Wright’s Black Pearl Elite.
At first, naturally, the former Bona standout thought Nwabuzor was messing around with him. Then he saw a tweet from another NBA all-star, DeMar DeRozan, who all but confirmed that he and James would be playing together. His friends told him he had to go, had to seize this chance, and Wright agreed.
He got a ride to the airport, caught a 6 a.m. flight back to LAX and landed in time for a 2 p.m. contest against the MVV Cheaters.
“(My friend actually) texted me, ‘don’t worry, opportunity never stops knocking, it just goes to the next person,’” Wright recalled on the McAfee show. “I read that, I was like, I gotta go. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. That’s Bron; I watch him all the time on TV. It’s crazy. A lot of people would never get that opportunity.”
UPON HIS arrival, the 6-foot-8 Wright left no uncertainty about who’d be guarding the four-time MVP.
“I told them, I’m guarding Bron,” he said. “Whatever happens after that happens after that. I told them there was no going back; nobody argued at all. They weren’t like, ‘no I got him, no I got him.’ I told them straight up: I’m guarding Bron.”
What followed quickly took social media by storm. Some poked fun at Wright for being the “average joe” against whom James, at times, made it look easy. But most commended him for his own impressive effort … and the life-long memory he created.
In the end, James finished with a game-high 42 points and 16 rebounds. But Wright, with both James and DeRozan guarding him at various points, in front of several thousand spectators, had 20 and 6 of his own. And his team, with no NBA players, lost by just two points, 104-102, to a squad with two NBA greats.
“He dropped 40 I had 20, for every 2 points he had I had 1,” Wright tweeted in response to those joking on him. “That’s really a once in a lifetime player, we had no NBA guys they had 2 and only lost by 2 pints if Bron doesn’t show up we win for sure.”
For Wright, who was back at the Reilly Center with his Brown & White teammates by Monday night, it was only a positive experience.
“He’s a really cool dude,” he said of James. “Obviously, he knows he’s on another level. He really didn’t have to say much (in terms of trash talking); he was just out there getting buckets. After the game, I asked for a picture and he gave me one. He said, ‘yo, you can really shoot that,’ and that meant a lot coming from Bron.”
SIX YEARS ago, Wright etched his name in Bona basketball lore when he helped push that team to the cusp of the NCAA Tournament. That capped an incredible senior season and gave rise to one of the bigger A-10 crimes in recent memory: The star forward didn’t make an all-conference team despite averaging 17 and 9, numbers that would typically make you a sure-fire first-teamer.
But those recollections will almost surely take a back seat to what unfolded Saturday near his native Carson, California.
“To watch him in person is (one thing),” Wright said. “But to actually play against him in a game is a whole different level. Like, you’re playing against LeBron James. That’s the only player that I ever felt his presence when he was on the court. It was just a different feeling, (and) I’ve been around NBA guys.”
No, Wright wasn’t scared.
“I just had to settle down a little bit,” he went on. “It was kind of tough on me, too, though. Because I’m flying from Buffalo all the way to LAX. I get a bad seat, jet lag a little bit. But I’m the type of person, you can’t make excuses, you gotta figure it out.”
And now? “When I lay my head on my pillow,” he said, “I can know that I gave it my all.”
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
