TRAVELING CALL

In his basketball soul, Isaiah “J.R.” Rider believes his championship ring will arrive in a box, postmarked Los Angeles, sometime next fall.

He would like to stay. No, he’d love to stay, to work his game into Phil Jackson’s offense, into the wonderful, late-season balance struck between Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, into the Lakers’ bid for a third consecutive NBA title.

He’d love to stand along the baseline in the first game at Staples Center next season, shoulder to shoulder with his teammates, and be handed that box, then watch the banner raised to the far wall, a standing ovation pouring from fans who also remembered the fight, on and off that gleaming floor.

Things just aren’t that neat for Rider. It does not appear his time in Los Angeles will end badly, simply that it will end. Maybe, for him, that constitutes a start.

“It’s been fun, because we’re winning, and everybody’s having fun,” Rider said three hours before the Lakers beat Philadelphia in Game 5. “I’ve never experienced this. Even though I’m not playing, and just walking with the guys, it’s still a good experience. In my own little way, I’m living it with the fellas. They tell me I’m part of the team, that everything is good, and that’s reassuring. At the same time, I want to be out there. It’s tough when they’re having a good time and playing good ball and getting wins and I know I could be a part of what’s going on.”

Instead, he spent the past two months at the end of the bench, usually in suits of gray or black. His punctuality was about the same, no better or worse than when he was on the active roster, only less of a story. He practiced regularly, often in lively three-on-three games with the reserves and inactive players like him. He didn’t play after April 6. In the Lakers’ run of 23 wins in 24 games, a span that transformed them from a vulnerable team into repeat champions, Rider played 18 minutes.

Friday night, when the champagne dripped from the ceiling at First Union Center, Rider celebrated a little and congratulated a lot. Asked what he would do from there, Rider shrugged and smiled.

“Just get a ring, win a championship,” he said. “I’m still part of this team. I still get a ring. I still get playoff money. It’s still exciting for me. What’s next is to work out, work out hard, hopefully they’ll go back over the summer and whatever they have to deliberate won’t be too drastic and I can come back to L.A. If not, there’s already been a couple people that have put the word out they’d be interested. To my understanding, everybody thinks I want to go back to the Lakers and that’s it. If the Lakers come back and don’t want to deal with me, then obviously I’ll go wherever I’m going.”

Rider said he is mulling a lawsuit against the NBA, though he admits he hasn’t completely thought it out. More likely, he said, he’ll let it die. Still, it annoys him so.

To his thinking, the league harassed him into what he believed was an improper drug test, fined him thousands of dollars for noncompliance, suspended him for five games, and then dropped the whole thing when a urine test for marijuana came back clean.

According to Rider, the NBA has not contacted him since the test, which he took in mid-March. He said he never attended a meeting, never met with a counselor, never received so much as a pamphlet regarding drug abuse.

“They were on me for so long,” Rider said. “They beat me down.”

A league representative told him the NBA would return the money it withheld from his paychecks if he submitted to testing and also stayed with their program, he said. He tested--negative, he insisted--and that was the last he heard of it, and now he’s waiting on the money. He said it would not be the back pay for which he sued, however. He simply felt bullied by the league, and unfairly singled out because Dikembe Mutombo turned him in when they were teammates in Atlanta. It haunted him in Los Angeles, and he fears it has damaged his reputation.

“That was rough, and it was bad timing, and it was a rough deal,” Rider said. “But after that, I still had life, still had a chance and life goes on. I could have gone sour or stayed with it. My thing was to stay with it, let them know I have a lot of energy left in my legs, I have a lot to give.”

Oddly, Mutombo and Rider greeted each other during the Finals.

“He smiled at me and shook my hand,” Rider said, bemused. “You know, he did what he did, he’s going to have to live with that.”

The same has been said for Rider, of course.

“I’m always optimistic,” he said. “I felt like I still practice hard. I root my guys on. I never wished bad on anyone. And my energy has been good. I think they’ve seen that I have done the right thing. I still have made some mistakes, but I have basically done the right thing. If they take me back, I would really appreciate it. I would work hard. I would come back the J.R. that left Atlanta, averaging 24 points after the All-Star break. That’s what I’m going to be. If not, then I guess I’ve got to move on. I got to be around a great team, a good coaching staff, and it was awesome living in L.A. and playing in L.A., being from the Bay Area. But I still have to look in the mirror and I still have to work.”