Wright the right man for Rain or Shine?
Antoine Wright wasn’t feeling right and it showed in his game with Rain or Shine Sunday.
Lacking in sleep from his long haul coming in and lacking in shooting touch from a long layoff, the highest drafted import from the NBA simply didn’t have it and the Elasto Painters succumbed to the Barangay Ginebra Kings, 92-103, for their second loss in three starts in the Oppo PBA Commissioner’s Cup last Sunday.
But Wright refused to make excuses and instead promised to strut his stuff in their next game against the Alaska Milk Aces on Saturday at the MOA Arena.
“I’m looking forward to the next game,” said Wright, the 15th overall pick by the New Jersey Nets in the 2005 NBA Draft.
A replacement to the injury-stricken Wayne Chism, the 6-foot-7 forward said he likes the plays run by coach Yeng Guiao.
“It suits my game, so I know next game it will be better for me. I’m almost sure,” said the five-year NBA veteran who was of little help to the Elasto Painters in his debut marked by a 4-of-16 shooting in 28 minutes.
“I really wish I had a better showing, but I don’t make excuses for my performance. I’m a competitive guy. I just didn’t have it for whatever reason (on Sunday),” he said.
“It’s been a while since I played an official game, so there was a lot of rust. I had some plays on defense where guys just went around me and for whatever reason, my legs wouldn’t react the way I wanted them to,” he added.
“I got here 3 in the morning. I haven’t slept. I went to the hotel, practiced, got measured, back to hotel, then to the game,” he added. But ROS coach was happy with what he saw. “Understandably, we have a new import. It’s the first time he played with our team. He just stepped out of the airplane. So that’s not really the best we could see of him,” said Guiao.
“If we can get a few days with him to practice, to know his teammates, to know the system, we’ll get better.”
The E-Painters have to stick it out with Wright as Chism suffered a bad hamstring pull. Doctors said Chism, the Best Import awardee in this conference last year, could be out for a month.
Wright played five NBA seasons with the New Jersey Nets, the Dallas Mavericks, the Toronto Raptors and the Sacramento Kings.
The West Covina, California native was a highly recruited player coming from a stint with the USA team in the 2003 FIBA Junior World Championship where he averaged 6.8 points and 4.4 rebounds. He chose to attend Texas A&M and play under coach Melvin Watkins in a collegiate career marked by his Big 12 Conference Freshman of the Year citation, Honorable Mention All-Big 12 in his sophomore year and No. 4 finish in the Big 12 scoring ladder in his junior year.
“He’s a legit NBA player, picked very early in the first round. His major problem today is he’s not in game-shape. He has no legs. He hasn’t played in seven months. That means he hasn’t competed in a competitive tournament in seven months. He has been keeping himself in shape playing pickup games but that’s totally different from playing a competitive league game,” said Guiao.