Two offseasons ago, the Milwaukee Bucks signed Delon Wright to be their backup point guard and a defensive enforcer behind Damian Lillard, a callback to the title team's toughness on that end of the floor. That billing soured immediately as it became clear the Bucks had made a mistake. To say that Wright was unplayable would be putting it lightly. The team flipped him at the trade deadline for Jericho Sims.
Ahead of the 2025-26 season, the Pacers gave Wright what could turn out to be his final shot. He failed to make the roster in training camp and, over three months later, remains unsigned. Getting off on the wrong foot in Milwaukee may have been the beginning of the end to an otherwise successful career.
Degree of Wright's demise has been both unsurprising and a shock
On the one hand, Wright's decline seems obvious in hindsight. The Bucks signed him off the most inefficient season of his career, the first time he had shot below 40 percent from the field. He played his fewest minutes since his rookie year, and his numbers were down across the board. He was three seasons removed from his last with a double-digit scoring average.
On the flip side, Wright presented as a bounce-back candidate still endowed with a strong reputation as a defender and veteran savvy. An optimistic evaluation would describe him as a buy-low insurance policy and a sound fit for the Bucks' roster. It's not like they needed a Sixth Man of the Year candidate backing up Lillard.
Even a pessimistic prediction would fail to capture just how quickly it all went off the rails. Wright averaged 2.2 points per game on 27 percent shooting and fell out of the rotation by the New Year. His legacy in the organization is as a cautionary tale and the reason the Bucks had no choice but to try out two-way guard Ryan Rollins in his place. Obviously, that experiment has paid off in spades.
Smoothing over his Bucks implosion, Wright won himself a fresh opportunity by playing well for the Knicks post-deadline. His shooting efficiency spiked, he went back to being a serviceable reserve, and even figured into New York's playoff second-round rotation against Indiana. The point-guard-needy Pacers gave him an Exhibit 10 contract shortly before the preseason.
Wright was gone 12 days later, and no other team has shown interest. After a 10-year career spent with 10 different teams, the writing is on the wall. Maybe someone gives him one last chance before season's end, but at this point, it's hard to imagine Wright fighting his way back into an NBA rotation.