Julian Wright Apologizes for Refusing to Enter Raptors Game

Toronto’s season is already over — it probably was when Chris Bosh left in the summer — but that doesn’t mean the players should stop competing. If anything you figure they’d be playing hard to keep their jobs, impress other teams, or just to pull stats JaVale McGee style. That’s not the case for forward Julian Wright who for some reason decided not to enter the Raptors’ blowout loss to the Warriors on Friday night.

Toronto coach Jay Triano “said he asked Wright to go into the game at some point in the third quarter, only to watch Wright remain firmly seated on the visitors’ bench,” according to The Toronto Star. “I just went to the next guy,” said Triano. “I wasn’t going to ask him twice.”

A day later, Wright had come to his senses and apologized to the team. The Fan 590 in Toronto (via Pro Basketball Talk) wrote that Wright apologized and everyone understood his frustration. “The best way to put it is this was not characteristic of me,” said Wright. “That’s why I think this is (now) a thing of the past.”

Yeah, that’s about the last thing a team with 20 wins should be thinking about. If I had to make a guess as to why Wright was pissed, it’s probably because he’s seen mostly DNPs and was probably pissed that he wasn’t asked to enter a game until it was already well over. I can understand the frustration if that’s the case, but take it out in better ways.

(via C-Note)