Joey Glenn Wright (born September 4, 1968) is an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

coach and former player. He has been the head coach of three teams in the Australian National Basketball League: the

Brisbane Bullets The Brisbane Bullets are an Australian professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL) based in Brisbane, Queensland. They competed from 1979 to 2008, and returned to the league in 2016. Brisbane were one of ten NBL f ...

, which won an NBL championship in 2007, the now-defunct Gold Coast Blaze and the

Adelaide 36ers The Adelaide 36ers, also known as the Sixers, are an Australian professional men's basketball team in the National Basketball League (NBL). The 36ers are the only team in the league representing the state of South Australia and are based in th ...

. He is a three-time NBL Coach of the Year (2003–04, 2006–07 and 2016–17), and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

College career

Wright was born in

Alton, Illinois Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is a p ...

and enrolled at

Drake University Drake University is a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, including professional programs in business, law, and pharmacy. Drake's law school is among the 25 oldest in the United States. His ...

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

after

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

. He played on the

Drake Bulldogs The Drake Bulldogs are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent Drake University, located in Des Moines, Iowa, United States. The Bulldogs' athletic program is a member of the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) and competes at the NCA ...

basketball squad during the 1986-87

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

season but received little playing time on the court. Wright transferred after his freshman year to the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

for a chance to play with the school's prestigious Longhorns

basketball team Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

. After sitting out as a redshirt sophomore in 1987-88, Wright was selected as the Longhorn's point guard from 1988 through 1991. Wright and teammates' Lance Blanks and

Travis Mays Travis Cortez Mays (born June 19, 1968) is an American women's basketball coach and former professional player who was the women's head coach for Southern Methodist University (SMU) from 2016 until 2021. Mays was selected by the Sacramento Kings ...

stellar offensive performance dubbed the trio as the "BMW Scoring Machine" during the 1989-90 basketball season. Wright was particularly known for his hustling and effective jump shots that greatly helped contribute to the "Scoring Machine". The Longhorn team won the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

tournament that season and advanced to the

Elite Eight In the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship or the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship, the "Elite Eight" comprises the final eight teams, representing the regional finals, or national quarterfinals. In Division I and Divis ...

in the 1990 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament.

Professional basketball career

Wright spent the spring of 1991 at the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

tryout camp, where he showcased a high field goal percentage and averaged nearly ten points a game. He even caught the eye of the Boston Celtics, who expressed an interest in Joey Wright during the tryouts. However the Celtics eventually passed up on Wright, whose lack in quickness and size were looked down upon. Wright was nonetheless projected to be drafted in either the late 1st or early 2nd round of the 1991 NBA Draft. Several weeks later he was selected at the tail end of the 2nd round as the 50th pick of the NBA Draft by the Phoenix Suns. Friends and Longhorn teammates celebrated the announcement at Joey Wright's apartment; but despite all the excitement the former University of Texas basketball star was much concerned with his low draft pick. Joey Wright was released by the Suns prior to the 1991–92 NBA season. Although Wright played overseas for several years, he never appeared in an NBA game. Wright played for the Geelong Supercats during the 1995 and 1996 NBL seasons.

Coaching career

Drawing upon previous coaching experience with the Austin Cyclones in the Southwest Basketball League (USA) and other US teams, Wright sought a coaching contract in the NBL. He was appointed as the Brisbane Bullets'

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

midway through the 2002–03 season; a position which he held until 2008. Wright led the team to great heights including a 16-win improvement in the following 2003–04 season, successive finals appearances and a stellar 2006–07 season featuring a minor premiership, a 21 NBL game winning streak and a championship. After the Blaze folded at the end of the 2011–12 NBL season, Wright sat out

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

before being signed as head coach of the

for the

2013–14 NBL season The 2013–14 NBL season was the 36th season of competition since its establishment in 1979. A total of eight teams contested the league. The regular season was played between 10 October 2013 and 23 March 2014, and was followed by a post-season f ...

. The 36ers, who had finished last in three of the previous four NBL seasons, finished second in the season, with Joey Wright named the NBL's Coach of the Month for November after leading the 36ers to a 5-0 record for the month which included a 91-86 home win at the

Adelaide Arena Adelaide Arena (known commercially as Adelaide 36ers Arena) is a multipurpose indoor sports stadium located in Findon, an inner western suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is the former home arena for the Adelaide 36ers of the NBL and th ...

over the previously undefeated

Perth Wildcats The Perth Wildcats are an Australian professional basketball team based in Perth, Western Australia. The Wildcats compete in the National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball League (NBL) and play their home games at Perth Arena, ...

on November 22, 2013. Wright helped revive the 36ers fortunes and the team went from the bottom of the NBL ladder to playing in the NBL Grand Final in his first season with the club, though they ultimately were beaten 2-1 in the Grand Final series by the Wildcats. With Wright having lifted the 36ers from the bottom of the ladder to the NBL Grand Final in just one season, most were shocked when the NBL named

Wollongong Hawks The Illawarra Hawks (formerly the Wollongong Hawks and The Hawks) is an Australian professional basketball team based in Wollongong, New South Wales. The Illawarra Hawks compete in the National Basketball League (Australia), National Basketball ...

coach

Gordie McLeod Gordon "Gordie" McLeod (born 7 November 1956 in Wollongong, New South Wales) is an Australian former professional basketball player and former assistant coach for the Cairns Taipans in the National Basketball League (NBL). Professional career ...

as the NBL's Coach of the Year for season 2013–14. Adelaide had improved from an 8–20 record in 2012–13 to 18–10 in 2013–14 while Wollongong, finalists in 2012–13 with a 13–15 record also finished 2013–14 with the same 13–15 record. Adelaide again made it to the Semi-finals in 2014–15, but missed the playoffs in 2015–16. In the

2016–17 NBL season The 2016–17 NBL season was the 39th season of the National Basketball League since its establishment in 1979. A total of eight teams contested the league. The regular season was played between October 2016 and February 2017, followed by a pos ...

, the 36ers started off slowly winning just 3 of their first 9 games. However, from there they became the team to beat, winning 14 of their next 15 games and by Round 16 of the 19 round, 28 game season had been confirmed as regular season champions for the first time since 1999–2000. The 36ers finished the season with a 17-11 record, two games clear of the second placed Cairns Taipans. Wright won the Coach of the Month award in November, December and January, going undefeated in December. As a result, Wright won his 3rd Coach of the Year award on February 13, 2017, joining

Brian Goorjian Brian Warwick Goorjian (born 28 July 1953) is an American-Australian professional basketball coach and former player served as the head coach of the Bay Area Dragons of the East Asia Super League (EASL). He is also currently the head coach of th ...

and

Lindsay Gaze Lindsay John Casson Gaze (born 16 August 1936) is an Australian former basketball player and coach. He played for Australia in three Summer Olympics qualification tournaments, between 1960 and 1968, and was the head coach of the senior Austr ...

(who the CotY award is named for) as a 3-time winner of the award. At the season's conclusion, Wright signed a five-year contract extension with the 36ers. On 26 February 2020, Wright and the Adelaide 36ers parted ways, citing a mutual agreement following an end of season review.

Personal life

Wright later pursued a career outside of sports in the

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

industry. He operates two businesses at his home in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

but spends his time overseas in Australia as a basketball coach. He has four children.

References

External links

Profile
at Eurobasket.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Joey 1968 births Living people Adelaide 36ers coaches American expatriate basketball people in Australia American expatriate basketball people in the Philippines American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Barangay Ginebra San Miguel players Basketball coaches from Illinois Basketball players from Illinois Basketball players from Austin, Texas Drake Bulldogs men's basketball players National Basketball League (Australia) coaches High school basketball coaches in the United States People from Alton, Illinois Philippine Basketball Association imports Phoenix Suns draft picks Point guards Sportspeople from Austin, Texas Sportspeople from Greater St. Louis Texas Longhorns men's basketball players Brisbane Bullets coaches Great Taste Coffee Makers players