Wright reached 6-foot-8 as an eighth-grader and led his grade school team to an undefeated season. His height and success brought him to St. Anthony High School, the basketball powerhouse in Jersey City coached by Bob Hurley. He lasted a year before flunking out.

"If he was 6-foot-5, I doubt he would have ever played basketball," Hurley says. "He wasn't mentally tough, and he didn't push himself the way the other players would."

Using a cousin's address, Wright's family enrolled him at Elizabeth High School, another powerhouse, where he led his team to victory in the state's Tournament of Champions. He scored 28 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

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"The bigger the player, the more you have to prove you can't play." — Bob Hurley

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Disc jockey dreams

For Wright, college basketball was a lot like the playgrounds of Jersey City — he played because others wanted him to. The game, after all, was going to pull his family out of poverty.

Recruited by dozens of top colleges, Wright chose Seton Hall in 1990. Walker, his closest friend from childhood, was there, and so were a handful of other players he knew. P.J. Carlesimo had led the Pirates to the NCAA Final in 1989, and Wright was going to help build a dynasty.

He spent his freshman year getting grades that would meet NCAA standards, then played two up-and-down seasons, tantalizing fans and scouts with his potential, and infuriating them with his lack of drive. He would grab 14 rebounds against a national power like North Carolina, then virtually disappear against Western Kentucky.

For him, college wasn't about basketball. It was about being the disc jockey at the parties he and Walker threw in their dorm. Wright says he rarely resisted chances to smoke a little weed or drink with friends.

Years later, over lunch, Walker, who now runs an after-school program for at-risk kids in Jersey City, asks Wright what he would have done if left to his own devices.

"DJing, doing my music," Wright shoots back without hesitation.

And still, after Wright announced he would forgo his senior season for the NBA, Utah drafted him in the first round of the 1993 draft with the 18th pick and signed him to a five-year, $5 million contract.

No one, it seemed, wanted to consider the 7-foot-2 kid wanted to be a disc jockey instead of a basketball player.