JR Rider? Really?
by Mark Ginocchio
Sep 11, 2009 2009 Offseason, Rumors
In a report that’s straight out of bizarro world, the Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting that Isaiah JR Rider is looking to make a comeback in professional basketball this season and the Nets are one of the NBA teams interested in inviting him to training camp.
Rider, who hasn’t played in the NBA since passing through the Denver Nuggets during the 2001-02 season, currently has offers from the North Teaxas Fresh ABA organization and from a possible team overseas, according to the report. His agent, Joe Lee, acknowledges that the Nets aren’t likely to invite Rider to camp, but lists them as a potential destination regardless.
Rider is probably best known as the 1994 slam-dunk king in the NBA, whose between-the-legs dunk was poorly imitated by dumb suburban junior high kids on seven-foot-high basketball hoops (or was that just me?). He was also a member of the infamous “Jail-Blazers” Portland teams, racking up a number of arrests for drugs and other charges.
There are nine million reasons why JR Riders is not coming to the Nets, most notably there just isn’t any room on the roster for him with the max 15 guys already under contract. I guess I could sit here and speculate about the Nets maybe moving a point guard to Miami or buying out Tony Battie, as has been discussed around the web this summer, but there are really no scenarios out there where I can imagine the Nets making those moves to make roster space for a 38-year-old Rider. Still, I found great amusement from this report, which totally came out of left-field for me so I felt obligated to throw this up there.
September 14th, 2009 at 6:20 PM
I’m fairly certain the terms of his probation will not allow him to leave California. Cocaine is a hell of a drug!