Remembering Isaiah Rider and the 1994 NBA Slam Dunk Contest

 

When the Minnesota Timberwolves selected Isaiah (J.R.) Rider with the 5^th pick in the 1993 NBA draft, they knew they were getting an incredibly talented player with loads of potential. As a college player, Rider was a freak. During his junior season at UNLV, he was the leading scorer on a Runnin’ Rebels team that finished with a 28-2 record and the #7 ranking in the final AP polls. As a senior, he scored 29.1 points per game (2^nd in the nation) while grabbing just under 9 rebounds per game. Rider was so dangerous in the open court that he routinely went over opposing players en route to the rim. Don’t believe me?

 

The man was a lethal weapon, loaded with superhuman athleticism and offensive talent to spare.

Despite his obvious talent, though, Rider’s two years of college basketball at UNLV were spent in relative obscurity. While Rider dominated the college landscape, many never heard of him, in large part because of the fallout that resulted from heavy NCAA sanctions that were levied against the Runnin’ Rebels and Coach Jerry Tarkanian just before Rider arrived on campus for his junior season. Those sanctions, which took effect during Rider’s first season at UNLV in 1991-92, prevented the Runnin’ Rebels from being televised nationally and also banned them from participation in the NCAA tournament. And so, while Rider wreaked havoc on his opponents en route to 2^nd team All-American honors as a senior, the majority of the country had no idea he existed.

That all changed when he entered the NBA in 1993. At 6’5 and 215 pounds, Rider had the prototypical size of an NBA shooting guard. That, along with his scoring ability, made him an exceptional fit for many NBA teams. But joining a team like the Timberwolves, who had gone 85-243 in their first four seasons of existence, made him even more of an asset. They needed his scoring. They needed his athleticism. And Rider gave them both. During his three seasons with the Timberwolves, Rider started in 195 of 229 games, averaging 18.8 ppg. He shot nearly 36% from 3-point range, averaged 4 rebounds and 3 assists. Statistically speaking, Rider was as good as advertised.

But Rider’s impact on his teams was less than sensational. From the moment he arrived in the NBA, he was seemingly surrounded by chaos. He was late to practice. He missed meetings. He had run-ins with management, and fought with teammates. He spit on a fan, was convicted of assault, and got busted for possession of marijuana. All of this was a regular part of his three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves. In fact, he was late so often, and missed so many team events, that his excuses became legendary. His car wouldn’t start. He didn’t get his wakeup call. His pipes were frozen. His cab driver took him to the wrong hotel. You couldn’t make it up if you wanted to. Yet Rider did. It was a comedy of errors, and the media roasted him for his every misstep. Rider was even named “Turkey of the Millenium” in 1999 by the Star Tribune’s Pat Reusse. As Reusse put it, “We needed greed, egomania and a complete lack of responsibility, with a little pot smoking for good measure.” And Rider fit the bill.

Of course, if Rider’s on-court presence translated into victories, all the off-court hoopla might have been forgiven. But it didn’t. The Wolves continued to lose with Rider, playing as bad or worse with him than they did before he was drafted. This certainly wasn’t all the fault of Isaiah J.R. Rider. But a lot of it was. And so his time with Minnesota was relatively short-lived. After three seasons, he moved onto Portland. And then Atlanta…and the Lakers…and Denver. Wherever he went, Rider seemed to have a knack for playing his way out of the city that was giving him a fresh start. By 2002, Isaiah Rider’s NBA career was finished.

Despite his failings as an NBA player, he wasn’t a failure. He had tons of talent, which was front and center for everyone to see. Over the course of his 9-year NBA career, Rider averaged 16.8 points per game. In four of those seasons, he hovered around 20 points per game. He was a career 35% 3-point shooter and shot an exceptional 80% from the free throw line. He also averaged nearly 4 rebounds a game and another 3 assists per game.

All this is to say that he was an enormously talented player who simply failed to mesh with his NBA teammates. As former teammate Shaquille O’Neal put it, “J.R. was the type of player who wanted to do things his way, and if his way didn’t match with the system sometimes there was a conflict. Whenever you go with a new team, you have to go with that system. If you don’t go with that system, then they oust you. He was a hell of a player and if he would have been a system-type baller then he’d probably still be here today.”  It was that type of sentiment that kept Rider out of favor with his teammates and coaches, and gave him a nomadic presence throughout his 9-year NBA career. Rider himself readily admits his own disappointment. “I’m upset that my career didn’t go along as it should have went,” Rider said. “Looking back at it, I would have changed some things.”

While Rider might always be viewed as a player who failed to live up to his promise, he will always have NBA All-Star Weekend in 1994. It was Rider’s rookie season in the NBA (a season when he would eventually be named to the NBA all-rookie team), and he was participating in the Slam Dunk Contest in front of his home crowd at Target Center. Competing with the likes of Denver’s Robert Pack, Detroit’s Allan Houston, Seattle’s Shawn Kemp, and Indiana’s Antonio Davis, Rider faced some stiff competition. But it was Rider’s signature dunk—what he called “Funk in the Trunk”, where he drove baseline, elevated, and put the ball between his legs as he scissor-kicked into a dunk—that sealed the title for him.

 

For Rider, the accomplishment was the first of what was sure to be many more. For Timberwolves fans, it was a proud moment where few had previously existed, and gave hope for the future of a young franchise.

Unfortunately for both, things haven’t gone as well as we had dreamed back in 1994. Rider’s career sputtered and faltered throughout, while the Wolves have mired away in mediocrity for most of their existence. As Wolves fans enjoy an NBA All-Star weekend where loads of young talent is representing our team, it seems like a good time to look back on 1994 and remember the exploits of J.R. Rider and his Slam Dunk title. Let’s hope the Wolves can parlay its current bevy of talent in a more productive way than it did back in 1994.

 

Joe Buri is a former high school athletic director who currently works as an attorney in corporate America. In addition to writing for TC Huddle, he also volunteers as an assistant varsity basketball coach at a local Twin Cities high school. Once dubbed “The Human Stump,” he considers holding former NBA forward Devean George to 39 points a highlight of his collegiate basketball experience.

 

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