Teammates and coaches remembered Wright as among the hardest workers they'd seen. Watch video
CLOSTER -- Jack Murphy, a student manager for the Arizona Wildcats men's basketball team in the late 90s and early 2000s, remembers Michael Wright as one of the hardest-working members of a talent-rich team.
The 6-foot-8 bruiser liked going to the movies and the other things most college kids do, but Wright's focus was almost singularly on basketball.
He spent many nights at the team practice facility shooting or doing extra workouts. Afterward, he'd come up to the athletic office and hang out with Murphy and other student managers and assistants late into the night.
That work ethic would take him from inner city violence of Chicago to a home in the affluent New York suburb of Closter. Despite missing out on an NBA roster spot, Wright had a long, lucrative and successful career playing hoops abroad.
Wright was still focused on basketball until his death in November 2015. He'd played a brief stint earlier in the year with Cholet Basket, a French team and had signed with an Iranian team, Petrochimi, in late February before coming home to New Jersey.
Randolph Berry, Wright's cousin, told the New York Daily News the 35-year-old planned to return to Europe, where he had spent his entire professional career, to keep playing. Instead, Wright was found dead on Nov. 10, 2015, his massive frame folded into the back of a Lexus and covered in garbage bags.
Michael Wright accepts the 2010 PLK (Polish Basketball League) All-Star MVP award. (Photo by Patryk Chmiel) The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office charged Mark A. Holdbrooks, Wright's longtime roommate, with murder after a year-long investigation. Holdbrooks, 59, was the one who reported Wright missing to police in Closter. The two shared a two-story brick home on tree-lined MacArthur Avenue, where they each raised a daughter.
The investigation found that Holdbrooks and David Victor, a Brooklyn man, drugged and killed Wright with an ax in the same home, Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said. They allegedly stuffed the 225-pound man into the Lexus and Victor drove the SUV to Brooklyn, where it was ditched.
Authorities have not given a motive for the slaying.
The charges shocked those who knew both men. Dave Paladino, a trainer based in Norwood who helped rehabilitate Wright after an injury, told NBC New York Holdbrooks was a legal guardian to Wright's daughter.
William Nelson, Wright's coach at Farragut Academy in Chicago, told NorthJersey.com that Holdbrooks spoke at a memorial service for Wright on what would have been his 36th birthday.
"He played the part," Nelson said.
Wright thought he had escaped violence by attending Arizona University. He often talked about his upbringing on the tough and sometimes dangerous neighborhood of west side Chicago, Murphy said.
Mark Holdbrooks (left) and David "King Victor" Victor (right) have been charged with murder in the killing of former New York Knicks draft pick Michael Wright. (Bergen County Prosecutor's Office)"That was one of the reasons he went to Arizona," Murphy said. "He wanted to go somewhere where he could just focus on basketball and school."
Wright's team at Farragut drew national attention. He shared the court with Kevin Garnett, who would go on to become the first high school basketball player drafted into the NBA in more than 20 years, and Ronnie Fields, a mercurial scorer who also seemed destined for the pros until he broke his neck in a car accident.
Wright was on the radar of Jim Rosborough, a former longtime assistant coach for the Arizona men's basketball team, early on. After college, Rosborough taught at a West Side middle school that sent students to Farragut, and he kept his eye on the school when he became a coach.
Arizona recruited him hard, Rosborough said. The school brought Wright down for a visit and matched him in a pickup game against members of the men's basketball team.
The players raved about Wright.
"He was just a horse of a kid," Rosborough said. "A little under 6-foot-8, solid as a rock."
Wright told William Nelson that weekend he wanted to go to Arizona, spurning interest from schools closer to home.
Wright became a favorite of teammates and coaches. Before road games, Rosborough would usually have the team in his hotel room to watch film.
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As soon as the session was over, Rosborough would usually turn around to see multiple players trying to tackle the giant Wright into the bed, abuse the good-natured Wright could have easily swatted away. Instead, he laughed it off.
"He was a big rock solid kid, but just a teddy bear," Rosborough said.
Wright was part of a Wildcats squad that reached the 2001 NCAA Tournament Finals. During that season, Wright hit an iconic game-winner against top-ranked Stanford, bullying his way in between 7-foot-tall twins Jason and Jarron Callins to hit the clinching layup.
Wright left Arizona after that season, joining teammates and future NBA players Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson and Loren Woods in declaring for the NBA draft. The New York Knicks picked Wright in the second round of the 2001 draft, but he failed to make the team and signed with a professional club in Poland.
He'd go on to play in Spain, Israel, Germany, France and Turkey.
Wright's size likely hurt his NBA chances. At 6-foot-8, he wasn't tall enough to play as a power forward in the NBA, but also not quick enough to play as a small forward.
Murphy believes Wright was a decade too early. Smaller power forwards are en vogue in today's NBA, and Wright could stretch defenses with a jumper effective out to 18 feet.
Wright tried for a few years to break in with NBA teams, but he eventually made his fortune in Europe, where he became one of the top scorers on the continent with various teams, particularly in Turkey, where he obtained citizenship and adopted the name Ali Karadeniz.
Wright didn't keep in touch regularly with his former Arizona coaches and teammates once he started playing in Europe. Murphy remembers running into him at an NBA Summer League game in 2004 or 2005, but not hearing much aside from that.
Rosborough, however, got a call from Wright about a year before his death. He said he was interested in coming back to Arizona to finish his degree once his playing career was over.
Wright never got the chance, but after he died, his former teammates and coaches set up an endowment in his name to provide scholarships to former Arizona student-athletes who want to return to school to finish their degrees.
The campaign drew donations from former teammates like Luke Walton, now coach of the Los Angeles Lakers; Josh Pastner, a graduate assistant while Wright was a Wildcat, and now head coach at Georgia tech; and Richard Jefferson, who won a championship in June with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The effort raised nearly $70,000.
"He kept to himself, but he was tough, he has hard-nosed, he was a great teammate," Pastner said. "Everyone loved him at Arizona."
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.