FanHouse IsaiahRider

NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.



* "With 10 seconds left in the half, Portland took a 20-second timeout. A Blazers substitution brought Jerryd Bayless into the game. Greg Oden was supposed to leave the game, but he didn't." -- InsideHoops

* "I once heard it said that experience is not what happens to a man, experience is what a man does with what happens to him. That's real science, so I'll drop that one again. Experience is not what happens to a man, experience is what a man does with what happens to him." -- Stephon Marbury blogging at the New York Post

* "You see where that [expletive] jumped from?" Mark Blount said. Chris Quinn walked to the media center at the front of the room and hit the rewind button to watch the play again. "That is an ath-lete," Joel Anthony said. "That's a tight end in the NFL," Blount said. -- ESPN's Daily Dime

* "This two-pound fruitcake is an opportunity for Yao, Hawk and friends - Ben Roethlisberger, Jimmie Johnson, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden - to give back during the festive season and also in this time of economic distress." -- Ball Don't Lie

* "I'm sure many of you have heard by now that Bonzi Wells has taken his talents to China this year for the princely sum of 80,000 dollars. This is a guy that turned down a 36 million dollar contract 3 years ago." -- At the Hive

* J.R. Rider's "Play of the Decade" versus Kobe's Olympic alley-oop; 12 Lessons learned in 2008; and hoops and tacos.

We brought you the worst of Isiah Rider a second ago, so now it's only fair to take a second and celebrate the best. With the dunk contest looming, and Tyrus Thomas unveiling plans for his thrilling "stand under the basket, jump with two feet, dunk gingerly with two hands" masterpiece ... here's a look back at one of my favorites.



That, my friends, was the East Bay Funk Dunk, of which Charles Barkley said, "Oh my God! That might be the best dunk I ever seen. That was awesome." And at the time it happened, I'm with Charles ... that was the best dunk ever, and it looked like he pulled it off easily.

I think it's been eclipsed several times since then, of course, but at the time ... that was top shelf.

Unless you happen to be an inmate at the Marin County Jail, that is. J.R. is going away for about seven months. The sentence came down today on several charges, with Rider having pled guilty to felony possession of cocaine, battery and evading a police officer.

We could go over all the things Rider's been arrested for since his playing career ended, but by the time we were finished, Rider's 7-month stretch in county would be over. They're all the sorts of things you see people being arrested for on Cops. None of it is fun or amusing ... they're all just more tragic steps in the saga of the King of Wasted Talent.

Speaking to the court prior to sentencing, Rider said he had fallen into a tailspin in the past year and gotten into trouble here and in Alameda County, where he lives.

"I got myself into this," Rider said, adding that he has been deeply affected by the grave condition of his mother. "I want to get out (of jail) - have a funeral for her."

Rider's mother is in a coma because of a heart condition, and the family has been told by doctors that she is brain dead.

Ugh. That just makes a guy feel ill. I hope that there's some kind of a happy ending in here for him.

It's hard to even fathom how hard the guy fell ... it's sort of hard to pick out a contemporary comparison, because no one combines the on-court talent with the combustibility that Rider brought. But comparing them on basketball ability alone, imagine if, for example ... ten years from now, Randy Foye hasn't played competitive basketball in years, has been arrested half a dozen times, and is now going to jail (and I really hope I didn't just jinx Randy Foye). How sad would that be?