5. Isaiah “J.R” Rider – 2000-01 season
One of the worse cases of a player wasting tremendous natural ability and physical tools is that of Isaiah Rider who was signed by the Lakers as a free agent prior to the start of their 2000-01 championship season. Rider was coming off a productive year with the Atlanta Hawks where he led the team in scoring with a 19.3 per game average; despite his production the Hawks had no interest in bringing him back.
The lack of interest in signing rider by the Hawks and many other NBA teams had nothing to do with Rider’s talent, but his constant personal and off the court problems.
Rider was a low risk-high reward signing for the Lakers as they already had a strong veteran laden roster and were coming off a championship. The Lakers thought process in bringing in Rider was they could get a dynamic and potent scorer off the bench to spell Kobe. If Rider continued with his off the court problems they could simply cut him and be no worse off.
Rider actually had a decent season, playing in 67 games in the regular season and leading the Lakers in scoring off the bench. However, the Lakers opted to leave Rider off the playoff roster and went on to win a championship without him. Rider still got a championship ring but without any playing time during their run that season he has all been forgotten from Lakers’ fans memory.
Lakers passed on bringing Rider back the following season. Rider got a shot with the Denver Nuggets but 10 games into the season he was waived for chronic tardiness, or in other words, being the usual Isaiah Rider. That ended up being the last time that Rider would ever play in the NBA.