Lakers Take Flier on Rider

The Lakers got stronger, younger, more athletic and infinitely more controversial Friday with one head-spinningly inexpensive move.

Free-spirited free agent Isaiah (J.R.) Rider, the often-brilliant and always-bombastic scoring guard who has speedily worn out welcomes with three teams in seven tumultuous seasons, signed a one-year, $736,000 contract with the Lakers, passing on a $2.25-million offer from the Miami Heat.

The salary, given his experience, is at a minimum NBA level; the potential for strange and disruptive behavior is not, given Rider’s history of multiple suspensions, brushes with the law and flare-ups with coaches, teammates and even fans while a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trail Blazers and Atlanta Hawks.

Is Rider, 29, a time bomb waiting to explode, or an incredible bargain, given his 18-point career scoring average and the Lakers’ need for a scorer with the expected departure of Glen Rice?

Either way, Laker Coach Phil Jackson, who had a long talk with Rider on Thursday, said that, with a solid, veteran roster already assembled, he does not fear that chaos looms.

“Yeah, there’s risk--when you’re in this business, you do risk-reward type of judgments all the time,” Jackson said Friday. “And the reward off of this totally outweighs the risk.

“We have a solid group of guys who’ve won a championship. Yet we know we have to make some improvements because other teams have improved themselves. Things have gotten a little sticky over the course of the summer and this is a great chance for us to improve our ballclub.”

The Laker brass has penciled Rider (6-foot-5, 215 pounds) in as a starting guard alongside Ron Harper, with Kobe Bryant shifting to the small-forward role in the triangle offense, replacing free agent Rice.

Bryant, however, will probably defend opposing guards more often than forwards.

Reached by phone, Rider said that the chance to play alongside Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal was too much to pass up, even though he is walking away from $1.516 million for the 2000-01 season.

“Basically, I want to win,” said Rider, an Oakland native. “I’m a California kid, I grew up on Magic and Showtime, and who wouldn’t want to be part of ‘The Lake Show?’

“How many times do you get to play with a 22-year-old kid who’s Jordanesque? How many times do you get to play with a seven-foot, 350-pound guy who’s just solid, and faster than any other big man in the league?

“I couldn’t pass that up, not with the Lakers and all that tradition.”

Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak also met with Rider on Thursday and said that the team looked into Rider’s background of trouble, which is vast.

In the last three seasons, Rider has been suspended four times and was waived by the Hawks last March 17 after numerous disruptive events and criticizing a number of teammates for turning him into the league over alleged marijuana use.

But Kupchak on Friday pointed to Rider’s decision to bypass Miami’s better offer as an indication that he could be ready to revamp his image.

“He didn’t chase the dollar,” Kupchak said. “I think that’s the first good sign. He knows that he has to find a place that would give him his best chance to succeed, to restart his career. . . .

“Here’s a player who’s going to play. For a second do we think that the resolve of this group including our coaching staff is not a good one? So why not? That’s the kind of risk we have to take, I think.”

Said Rider: “It’s my eighth year in the league, and I’ve saved some money, so I’ll be all right. I just want to play. I just feel if I do what’s necessary, I’ll be taken care of. I’m thinking long-term, not short-term.”

Jackson, who had success during his Chicago Bull tenure with problem players such as Brian Williams and Dennis Rodman, said that he will give Rider the same set of rules to follow as the rest of the team.

“We got ourselves a young man who’s very talented, who wants to make some changes in perception in how he’s been looked at as a ballplayer,” Jackson said.

“He’s given us some real good verbal promises that he will do what it takes to do whatever he has to do as a player and whatever spot he has to play in.”

Both Jackson--who says that former Bull Luc Longley has always given Rider, his former Timberwolve teammate, positive reviews--and Kupchak emphasized that Rider was a far different character than Rodman, who was a 24-hour-a-day headache during a short stint with the pre-Jackson Lakers in 1999.

“Dennis is a person that sets himself totally apart from the group, always has,” Jackson said. “He’s a maverick in a lot of ways and I understood that and talked to the players before we got him [and said] that to be a championship club in Chicago again . . . we were going to have to make allowances for who Dennis was.

“But J.R. kind of told me that he doesn’t expect any different treatment, he wants to be treated just like any of the other players and will conform to any rules and regulations.”

Said Kupchak: “I don’t think you can talk about Isaiah Rider and Dennis in the same sentence. Dennis was 37 and he wasn’t going to change. . . .

“With Isaiah, he’s 29 years old, and we feel your best basketball is between 28 and 32. He has a lot more to gain right now than Dennis did.”

Rider said that during his talk with Jackson, he understood that there would be no special rules to accommodate him.

“All I really know about Phil is what I had read in his clippings or seen on TV as far as religion or how he puts that into basketball with the Indian culture,” Rider said. “All I know is he brings world championships--to the Bulls and to L.A. in one year.

“He told me, ‘This is a good opportunity for you, and this is a good opportunity for us.’ He said he would give me no problems as long as I didn’t give him any problems.”

Jackson said that he couldn’t make permanent plans until he sees how Rider adjusts to the triangle, but agreed that Rider’s arrival could move Bryant to forward, at least in the versatile Scottie Pippen-role Jackson employed in Chicago.

“I’ve talked about that with Kobe,” Jackson said. “J.R. can move into a guard spot, which is his natural spot, and Kobe, because he’s a little bigger and a good rebounder might fit into that forward spot. But I don’t think it’s going to change our attack a whole lot.”

The Rider signing is the Lakers’ first dramatic move of a mostly frustrating off-season so far, and neither Kupchak nor Jackson said that the team’s huge vacancy--power forward--appears ready to be filled, especially after the collapse that would have netted them Christian Laettner in a four-team trade and sent Rice to New York.

“We’ve had 10 options,” Jackson said, “but we’ve gotten down to where there are very few left anymore.”

Could Jackson envision Rice, a free agent, returning for next season?

“Nothing is impossible,” Jackson said. “We really haven’t seriously considered it, but there’s always the chance that this will be the only possible [move] for us and the best thing that make sense as a basketball club.

“We don’t think it’s moving ahead either for us or for Glen. Glen wants a long-term situation with a security of money and we want him to have that too. And yet as a team we know the way things are structured in our organization, we need to have a specific player for our long-term goals that fits the need of our power forward and our backup center.”

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The Replacement?

Glen Rice is still a Laker, and he might remain one. But assuming Isaiah Rider is either insurance against Rice leaving as a free agent or in a trade for a power forward, here’s a comparison of their statistics:

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RICE RIDER 33 AGE 29 6-8 HEIGHT 6-5 220 WEIGHT 215

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*

1999-2000

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RICE RIDER 15.9 SCORING AVG. 19.3 43.0 FIELD-GOAL % 41.9 36.7 3-POINT FG % 31.1 4.1 REBOUND AVG. 4.3 2.2 ASSIST AVG. 3.7

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CAREER

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RICE RIDER 20.2 SCORING AVG. 18.1 45.9 FIELD-GOAL % 44.4 40.5 3-POINT FG % 35.0 4.7 REBOUND AVG. 4.1 2.3 ASSIST AVG. 2.9

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ALSO

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Rider’s Troubles With Hawks

Isaiah Rider has had a history of problems since being selected fifth overall in the 1993 draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves. He also played with Portland and Atlanta, before the Hawks let him go in the middle of last season:

1999-2000 SEASON

* October 1999: Rider got off on the wrong foot with the Hawks last season, arriving late for training camp when he refused to board a smaller plane to Chattanooga, Tenn.

* Nov. 16, 1999: Suspended for game against Charlotte after missing a practice.

* Dec. 19, 1999: Following a 116-89 home loss to Indiana, he sat on the court for 10 minutes, then launched into a profanity-laced tirade directed at his teammates.

* Dec. 20, 1999: Less than 24 hours later, he missed the flight for the team’s next game in Detroit and was suspended for that contest. He was relegated to the bench midway through the season.

* March 17, 2000: Waived after repeated clashes with teammates, coaches and management. He opted for his release from the club rather than a suspension for missing a team shoot-around.