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Dayton area players in NBA
Regular-season stats for pro basketball players from the area:
| Player, team | Gms | Pts | Ast | Reb. | Salary* |
| Chris Wright, Warriors | 24 | 2.9 | 0.2 | 1.9 | $473,604 |
| Norris Cole, Heat | 65 | 6.8 | 2.0 | 1.4 | $1,035,960 |
| Derrick Brown, Bobcats | 65 | 8.1 | 1.0 | 3.6 | $854,389 |
| Daequan Cook, Thunder | 57 | 5.5 | 0.3 | 2.1 | $3,341,558 |
*Source: ESPN.com
Golden State Warriors rookie Chris Wright tried not to put other NBA players on a pedestal because he never knew when he might be called into action and didn’t want to be in awe.
But he couldn’t help being a little starstruck the first time he faced Kobe Bryant.
Frustrated by his team's defense in an early-season game, Golden State coach Mark Jackson surprised the former University of Dayton standout by assigning him to the Los Angeles Lakers legend.
"After halftime, coach looked around during the first timeout. He was like, 'Chris Wright ...' My eyes got big because I didn't know what he wanted and I just heard my name. He said, 'If Kobe is running in the game, you've got him.' I'm thinking, 'Me?' I'm looking around and going, 'Are you talking about me?' " Wright said during a phone interview from Oakland, Calif., this week.
“I get in the game, and when you’re guarding someone, you’re not used to seeing a jersey saying the Lakers. You look at the back of the jersey and it says, ‘Bryant 24.’ And I’m like, ‘Man, I’m really guarding Kobe right now.’ But it has to go away so fast.
“I got a first foul on him. After that, I was really learning how to guard him. I’m not saying I was actually stopping him, but I was really seeing how you’ve got to guard these guys because they’re so good. That’s when I knew I really actually made it in the NBA.”
Wright became the first former Flyer to make the league since point guard Negele Knight played seven seasons over nine years with five different teams beginning in 1990.
The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 2.9 points and 1.9 rebounds this season while shooting 51.1 percent from the floor and 77.4 from the foul line.
He appeared in 24 of the team’s 66 games, and though the bulk of his playing time came at the end of blowout losses, Wright and four other rookies started the season finale for the injury-depleted Warriors against the San Antonio Spurs.
“I didn’t know I was going to start until right before we were getting ready to go out,” Wright said. “My heart started beating fast. I had to really shut it down. I prepared myself mentally during warm-ups that I was going to play right away. I just tried to bring as much energy as possible and play my game and not try to do too much.”
Wright managed to find that perfect balance, scoring a team-high 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting and grabbing eight rebounds in 46 minutes during a 107-101 defeat.
He also had seven dunks in the nationally televised game.
Wright overcame long odds to make the club as an undrafted free agent, and Jackson sees plenty of potential in the Trotwood native.
“His biggest strength is he is a great athlete. (But) Chris needs to work on his perimeter skills — shooting, ball-handling, etc.,” the first-year coach said. “Chris must become the hardest worker (on the team). If he does that, the sky is the limit for him.”
Wright knows just keeping his roster spot next season will be a challenge, but he has higher aspirations than that. While he enjoyed many perks as an NBA player — including a salary in the $475,000 range — he had difficulty adjusting to a reserve role after having been a star throughout his career.
“There were times it was really tough,” he said. “It killed me sometimes when I came home. It broke me down and sometimes brought tears to my eyes for the fact that this is my dream, this is what I want to be doing, but in actuality, it’s a process, and I have to just understand that.
“You think you’re the only one it’s happening to. You think you’re the only one sitting at the end of the bench, having to go to the D-League sometimes, not playing, being looked at as the so-called last man on the bench. But I don’t look at it like that. I look at it as I’m learning. I could be doing anything else in the world. I can’t complain. This is something I love to be doing.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2125 or dharris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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