Known as Jiri in his native Czech Republic, Zidek now plays for a club called Nymburk in his home country. His team won the Czech championship in 2004, and he was voted one of the three best Czech players in 2004. Before returning to play in the Czech Republic, he made several stops in Europe after bouncing around the NBA. This is a link to his current game log; you can see why he was considered our best pure shooter on the 1995 squad - he is shooting 47.6% from 3-pt land and 88.8% from the charity stripe.

Here is a picture of Zidek on his current team. Is it just me, or does he look EXACTLY the same as he did at UCLA ten years ago?

Photo credit: www.basket-nymburk.cz

His childhood club, Sparta Prague, has a brief summary of his career:

...[Zidek] is the first player in the history of Czech basketball to have played in the American NBA, in the years 1995-98. The participation of the first Czech player in the NBA undoubtedly contributed to the popularisation of basketball in the Czech Republic. In the season 1998-99 he played an outstanding season for the Lithuanian team Zalgiris Kaunas, which won the Euroleague (the European Clubs’ Championship) and played an important role in the qualification of the Czech national team in the European Championships in France 1999. 2000-01 he played for Real Madrid, then was transferred to ALBA Berlin (2001-02) and Prokom Trefl Sopot (2002-03). Since the season 2003-04 he come back to the Czech Republic and played for BK Nymburk (Czech champion 2004).

And here is an article from the Prague Post featuring him. It is an excellent read despite being from 2003.

Zidek, though less popular among fans than others from the 1995 team, was a key ingredient in our run to the title. He created problems for man-to-man defenses as he often required double-teaming in the post, and he also forced the man guarding him (almost always the opposing center) away from the basket by handling the ball at the top of the key. Defensively, he was less of a factor, but I'll never forget his performance against Scoreless Williamson in the championship game.

Oh, and if you're wondering, he still loves to shoot that infamous hook shot:


Photo credits: www.basket-nymburk.cz