The first time Kenneth Anderson came home with a basketball trophy he was in 4th and the trophy in question was almost as big as him. Joan, his mother, immediately asked him where he had got it.
“She thought I stole it”, he recalls. “She didn’t realize that I was becoming someone. “
Kenny, who has two sisters, Sandra and Danielle, was actually considered the neighborhood mogul. His pals nicknamed him “the skinny” or “Chippy” and he was only called upon when a player was missing.
“The guys would always tell me, ‘Don’t shoot, just pass the ball.’ I obeyed them. “
“Kevin Johnson’s Speed and John Stockton’s Vision”
“Chippy” learned to pass the ball. And pretty good. At one time, Anderson emerged as New York’s most talented basketball player since a certain Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In the summer of 1991, at age 22, he realized his childhood dream when the Nets made him No. 2 in the draft. No player so short – he is 1.85 m tall for 76 kg – had been chosen so tall since Isiah Thomas (No. 2 in 1981). In the NBA, the little ones are then in fashion.
“He’s the best university playmaker for thirty years”, says Marty Blake, recruiter superscout. “It’s a great”, declared Larry Brown, the current coach of the Bobcats who then officiated in San Antonio. “It combines the speed of Kevin Johnson with the vision of John Stockton. “
Kenny’s story begins in Queens, east of Manhattan and north of Brooklyn. It was there, in LeFrak City, that he was born in October 1970. New York players are marked by their origins. Those who come from upper Manhattan and the Bronx are continually seeking penetration. For them, gambling is a test of virility. Those in Brooklyn favor outdoor play. This is where Chris Mullin and Bernard King (Anderson’s teammate with the Nets for his last year in the NBA) made their ranges. The great playmakers of New York come mostly from Queens, like the greatest of them, Bob Cousy, the former superstar of the Boston Celtics. In a way, all Queens players are alike. They play “responsible”. Arriving at Archbishop Molloy High School in Briarwood in 1985, Anderson was already a rising star. From the first practice, his talent splashed the audience.
“He had been playing for 5 minutes when he threw a fantastic pass. I had never seen a better freshman ”, recalls Jack Curran, his coach at the time.
The notoriety of the left-handed point guard grows with each match. Sports Illustrated magazine named him the best sophomore in the United States in 1986. He was the first high school student in New York to be selected for four years in a row in the city’s team. Even Alcindor had failed to achieve such a performance. Kenny’s jersey is sent to the Basketball Hall of Fame. He set the New York State high school point record: 2,621. A record that will last 18 years. In 2004, Sebastian Telfair, another New York hopeful passed to the mill of the pro world, erased the mark with Lincoln High School. For the anecdote, throughout his freshman year, Jack Curran left Kenny Anderson on the bench for the first quarter of the meetings. We appreciate the performance even better … University coaches arrive from all over the country to try to seduce a player invited to McDonald’s All American and who is overwhelmed with distinctions (Gatorade High School player of the year, player from New York State, “Mr. Basketball”, Parade, Naismith and “USA Today” player of the year…).
“The first time I saw Kenny Anderson, he was 16 years old. He was already playing as if he had 32 ”, recalls Lou Carnesecca, legendary coach of St. John’s University.
Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins is most pressing. He visits Anderson more than 40 times. Kenny will be signing to Georgia Tech for very specific reasons. In the United States, a player can only trade with five universities. Kenny therefore makes his selection. He chooses Syracuse, North Carolina, Duke, Georgetown and Georgia Tech by sending a message: he will give his preference to the team that allows him to improvise and create. He eliminates Syracuse because he is afraid of losing the sense of reality by playing in front of the 33,000 spectators of the Carrier Dome. Kenny then asks Dean Smith, the coach of the Tar Heels, if he can run the game as he pleases. Smith’s answer is clear. “I prefer that the players make their remarks to me the day after the match”…
Anderson could have gone to Georgetown but he wasn’t too keen on John Thompson’s methods and his permanent player changes. Finally, Duke University eliminated itself by signing point guard Bobby Hurley. Georgia Tech had just hit the jackpot. In the fall of 1989, he put on his new jersey for the first time.
“Kenny is a very humble boy”, says Dennis Scott, his ex-teammate at the university who then evolves in Orlando. “He’s very different from all the leaders in New York. He doesn’t try to wow the gallery. He doesn’t bother dribbling behind the back or between the legs. “
Georgia Tech Pillar
In his freshman year, Kenny takes Georgia Tech to the varsity Final Four breaking the points and assists record for a freshman in the Atlantic Conference. The Kenny Anderson-Dennis Scott-Brian Oliver trio is renamed “Lethal Weapon 3”. The Yellow Jackets will fall against the future champion, UNLV. With the USA team, he won the gold medal at the Goodwill Games and the bronze medal at the Argentinian World Cup in 1990. Everything changed during the 1990-91 season. Kenny Anderson runs 25.9 points at 43%. Scott and Oliver left in the NBA, the leader of the Yellow Jackets must face increased pressure. He wants to do too much. Georgia Tech is eliminated by Ohio State in the second round. During the match, Anderson misses 20 of 28 shots. The underperformance nearly cost him dearly. NBA teams are wondering if he can handle an 82-game season. After two years in the NCAA, Kenny still wants to try his luck. He shows up for the draft. The Charlotte Hornets, who have the first choice, not surprisingly retain Larry Johnson. The Nets are preparing to choose Billy Owens (Syracuse) but Joe Taub, the owner, intervenes.
“I prefer to envision the future than to see the short term”, explains Taub. “You only find a player like Anderson once every 10 years. Our team is young and made up of promising elements like Derrick Coleman and Drazen Petrovic. We need a leader. Kenny must be that one. “
There are at least 7,000 people who agree with Taub’s choice. Spectators at Madison Square Garden on draft day. They give Anderson a standing ovation when the Nets announce their choice. Kenny and his mother are both crying. The skinny guy has just put on weight. Only, “Chippy” is not New York for nothing … A sort of curse seems to strike the most beautiful jewels of “Big Apple”, from Rod Strickland to Stephon Marbury.
After a delicate rookie season (7 pts over 17 minutes, 39% on shots) which made him the youngest player in the League, Anderson completely exploded. In 1992-93, he posted nearly 17 points (43.5%) with 4.1 rebounds, 8.2 assists and 1.75 interceptions. All of this is very promising, especially with a duo Drazen Petrovic-Derrick Coleman bringing in 43 points per game. The Nets invite themselves into the playoffs and fall in the first round against Cleveland, like the previous year (3-1 then 3-2).
After Petrovic …
The death of the Croatian full-back in June 1993 was a terrible blow, but New Jersey compiled another 45 wins the following year with a Kenny Anderson who posted 18.8 points and 9.6 assists. The improbable Kevin Edwards, back defector from the Heat, tastes a very ephemeral glory by leaving a season with 14 points on average. Coleman and Anderson win an invitation to the Minneapolis All-Star Game (6 pts, 4 rebounds, 3 wt for the second in 16 minutes). This will be the only selection of the leader of the Nets.
Follows a third consecutive elimination in the first round of the playoffs (3-1 against the Knicks). It seems obvious that there is not much more to expect from this formation, especially when the Nets painfully reach the threshold of 30 victories in 1995. Anderson, who is still talking about 10 assists per game (9.4 plus 17.6 pts) when he does not squat in the infirmary, is transferred the following season to the Hornets against Kendall Gill and friend Khalid Reeves.
Free-agent during the summer of 1996, he decided to join Portland where he brought 17.5 points and 7.1 assists. He’s the best scorer in the Trail Blazers. With Anderson, the Sheed, Isaiah Rider, Clifford Robinson and Lithuanian hub Arvydas Sabonis, the roster has a lot of character (and character). But Kenny is not totally convincing. Doubts grow at the end of a first round of the playoffs folded by the Lakers in four matches. And above all, Portland is offered Damon Stoudamire, top scorer of the Raptors with 19.4 points on average, the following winter. Anderson (for his part fell to 12.6 pts) was included in the exchange concluded on February 13, 1998. He refused to play in Canada, which earned him a small game of suspension.
On February 18, the Raptors shipped him to Boston against Chauncey Billups and three other players. The career of the New Yorker has just stalled. “Chippy” runs at 12 and 14 points for two seasons with the Celtics before playing the utilities and starting a tour of the United States. From 2002, he will no longer exceed 6.1 points per game… We find him in Seattle, New Orleans, Indiana, Atlanta, the Clippers and even in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 2005. This is where 2006 ended. a career rotten little by little by injuries. Anderson will have made only three seasons with 82 appearances: in 1993-94 in New Jersey, 1996-97 in Portland and 1999-2000 in Boston.
Seven children with 5 different women
He was also a good client for the celebrity press. From 1994 to 2001, Kenny was married to a reality TV contestant, Tami Roman. At the end of 1998, she filed for divorce, pointing out Kenny’s alleged infidelities. A bitter legal battle follows which strips the former leader of the Nets of part of his small fortune. We are talking about half of his assets, to which are added the remainder of a prenuptial agreement ($ 5.8 million) and a monthly pension of $ 8,500. In total, Anderson will have seven children with… five different women: Danielle with an ex-girlfriend; Christenese with DJ Spinderella, rapper from the group Salt-N-Pepa; Lyric Chanel and Kenni Lauren with Tami Roman; Ken Jr with his second wife, Tamiyka Lockhart; another Ken Jr and Devin with Sunny Castro (you followed?).
He doesn’t completely drop out of basketball. He is found at the head of the Atlanta Krunk, a CBA team. In September 2008, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in New York City with some other local glories (Lou Bender, Sam Perkins, Rod Strickland…). Anderson sets up development camps to help young prospects. These camps also help the best college elements prepare for the draft.
In 2011, he accepted the post of coach of a basketball team in a Jewish school, and it was still on a sidelines that he was found in 2019. He was a university coach in NAIA, in the Fisk Bulldogs. Unfortunately, the former Nets and Celtics point guard suffered a stroke two and a half years ago, but he’s recovered well.
Stats
14 years old
858 matches (693 times starter)
12.6 pts, 3.1 rbds, 6.1 pds, 1.47 int, 0.1 ct
42.1% on shots, 34.6% at 3 points, 79% on free throws
Awards
All-Star : 1994
Mix
Photo credit: Pacers.com
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