Wright still going strong in WNBA and community
NBA Hall- of- Famer Isiah Thomas once called Tanisha Wright an ambassador for the WNBA and “a leader in the locker room and the community” for the New York Liberty, for whom Wright plays and Thomas serves as team president.
It was testimony that this former West Mifflin High and Penn State University star has a knack for doing things the Wright way.
And so it goes that Wright will carve time out of her busy WNBA schedule on Aug. 17 ( from 2- 4 p. m.) and return to the p l a c e w h e r e s h e w a s r a i s e d , t h e M o n v i e w Heights housing complex, to distribute packed bookbags for kids in the community. This is Year 5 of the endeavor, done in conjunction with the Morning Star Baptist Church in West Mifflin, and it continues to grow.
One hundred bags has expanded to 200, to 300 ... and Wright wants more.
“I’ve really been able to tap into the community and I’ve got a lot of help from the women’s basketball players that I know,” said Wright, who resides in Charlotte during her WNBA offseasons.
“They’ve been so amazing and gracious in sending bookbags. My background is education — I have a degree in elementary education — and the smallest thing like a bookbag with pencils and notebooks makes a difference. I think it gives a kid confidence on the first day of school because they are prepared and they can be successful. It’s a way for me to give back to a community that helped to raise me. I’m looking forward to coming back.”
Wright is in her 13th WNBA season, yet you would hardly know it. A backup guard, she has had scoring games of 10, 9 and 8 points, to go with five 5- assist performances. She averages 4.8 points and 3.7 assists in 18.0 minutes for the Liberty ( 8- 11, fourth in the Eastern Conference).
Her statistics, solid for a bench player, are illuminated by the fact she is the oldest member of the Liberty by nearly five years. At 35, Wright was born 14 years before rookie Asia Durr.
No mater, she continues to add to a career stat line of 3,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,200 assists, achieved by only nine other players in WNBA history.
Drafted in the first round by the Seattle Storm in 2005, Wright helped the franchise to a WNBA championship in 2010. She is also a sixtime WNBA All- Defensive Team selection and finished among the top 10 in assists in 2012 and 2015.
It has been a rewarding ride, one in which she is not ready to walk away from. At least, not yet.
“I decided that I wanted to play another year and really have an impact on the team,” said Wright, who sat out in 2017 to rest and to spend more time with family before returning last year. “I enjoy basketball and I enjoy the people. This is probably going to be my last year doing it. My perspective is, as long as I can still be impactful and not feel like it’s time to hang them up, why not keep going? I like to take it year by year and see how I feel physically.”
Although she is considering retirement, Wright is keeping her options open.
“If I feel like I can compete at a high level for another year, then I’ll come back,” she said. “It’s year to year.”
If this turns out to be her final season, Wright’s postcareer path is fully in motion. She not only will return to her assistant coaching job at UNC Charlotte for a third season, but will continue to operate a successful real estate company, in which she has purchased, flipped and/ or rented and sold upwards of 25 homes in the past decade. The majority of her properties are in Pittsburgh.
“I have one in the North Side coming onto the market in the next few days,” said Wright, who is able to juggle coaching while playing because the college and WNBA seasons do not conflict. “I felt real estate was a way for a young black woman coming from the projects to learn about investing, because we really didn’t learn about investing and how to make our money work for us. ... When I started out, I thought I’d have one or two places and I’d make a little bit of cash. But I started to enjoy the process and I stuck with it.”
The process for Wright in New York — which is her birthplace and is home to a large number of family members — is to lead and mentor her younger teammates.
“I’m in a position where I can help the kids grow on and off the court,” Wright said. “As long as I feel like I’m helping and contributing, I’ll continue to do it. And when the time comes that I can’t do it anymore, I’ll ride off into the sunset.”
And, she’ll do it the only way she knows how — the Wright way.