Where is jonathan bender

Unlike a litter of prep-to-pros prospects anticipating a year career, Bender said he began to save and invest his money during his early years with the Indiana Pacers after being a first-round pick in Someday it was going to stop and I knew that at an early age. Uncategorized Jonathan Bender. While players such as Antoine Walker, Allen Iverson, and Kenny Anderson have blown NBA fortunes, Bender delved into the business world with much the same vigor as the basketball court, and has turned into a financial maven, earning millions on his business ventures.

He aims for more. While the current MedPro model has found a home among baby boomers Bender himself sold units his first two months , he hopes to soon polish off a model designed for serious athletes. Business , Uncategorized Business , Jonathan Bender.

This is Jonathan Bender 2. So effective, it's one that, had it come around a decade prior, it could have saved his basketball career. Bender knows failure on the court and off. After seven seasons in Indiana, he packed up, sold his Carmel home and moved to Houston, where the warmth would offer solace to his brittle knees. The cartilage was so worn down, the doctors told him, he'd never play again. He had tried, however. He had spent months at a time in Boston, working with renowned trainer Dan Dyrek, the same man who helped sustain Larry Bird's career in the late '80s after his back betrayed him.

But for Bender, the pain always kept coming back. Then it was done; the Pacers waived him in June Bender was labeled one of the biggest busts in NBA history. Nothing stuck. Bender was, in just his late 20s, on the brink of becoming the latest pro athlete to squander his fortune. So he changed course. He stopped thinking quick fix and started thinking long term.

As a kid, he'd create, design and build his own bicycles and parachutes. To succeed, he finally surmised, he'd have to start from scratch. Slumped on a park bench in Houston one afternoon shortly after leaving Indiana, Bender watched runners and walkers stroll by, and a light bulb went off in his head. He bought electrical tape, rubber bands, zip ties, ankle braces, metal rods and wire cutters.

He went home, slapped together what he'd sketched out in his head, and asked his girlfriend, Bernice, to come into the room. But it worked. The initial prototype of what would become the JBIT MedPro — picture a weight belt attached to ankle braces with elastic bands — accomplished exactly what Bender wanted: It relieved stress off the lower joints by making the quadriceps, hamstrings and calf muscles labor more intensely than usual. Simply put: It took the stress off his knees. Bender tested it, refined it, tested it and refined it.

Seeking a second opinion, he took it to the engineering wing at Purdue University. Here was an NBA has-been, a kid from rural Mississippi who never attended college, pitching ideas and brainstorming with biomedical researchers who analyze up to 30 potential inventions a year. He knew exactly what he envisioned, this sort of external hamstring, and was very good at getting his ideas across.

Nauman and a group of graduate assistants all agreed: Bender's contraption did shift pressure away from the knees. All that remained before it could hit the stores: Bender had to demonstrate the results.

And he knew there'd be no greater guinea pig than himself. If he could rehabilitate the very knees that cut short his NBA career, he determined, it would prove his device was "undeniable. Bender spent a year in the gym, working out every day with his invention. Playoffs Series. Appearances on Leaderboards, Awards, and Honors. More Bender Pages. Full Site Menu Return to Top. In the News : L. James , K. Durant , J. Embiid , J. Harden , S. Curry , L.

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