NJ Perspective on RJ

Earlier this week, we ran a piece in this space on a Richard Jefferson-for-Lamar Odom rumor picked up from the Star-Ledger's Dave D'Alessandro.

To my surprise, several of our readers made comments questioning Richard Jefferson's character.

Prior to one nightclub incident that still has some murky details, I had always considered RJ a stand-up guy given that nothing in his play or off-court commentary had given me a reason to believe otherwise.

But for the sake of curiosity, it seemed we Celts-folk could use some perspective from the Nets' side of the tracks on this one.   With that in mind, I checked in with Evan Roberts, who hosts the midday show for WFAN Radio in New York and is also one of less than ten diehard Nets fans left on the planet.

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Evan's take:

I wouldn't call RJ a punk, but his character has been questioned a lot more the last few years.  You have the incident in Minnesota, where he refused to leave a private party, and you have the bizarre quotes from him towards the end of last year.  He seemed to be in denial about the team's misfortunes and said some strange things as the team fell apart.  He also has been talked about as being a selfish player, who did not want to share the ball with Vince Carter.  Rumors have persisted that he hasn't gotten a long with teammates.

Still working on finding the quotes Evan mentioned, but nonetheless, there you have it: Score one for the readers.  While it sounds like the jury is still out on RJ, his image is apparently less squeaky-clean that I had perceived it to be.  Well done, folks.  Thanks for bringing this up, and thanks to Evan for taking the time to weigh in for us.