6-25-07, 9:58 am
Before all the NBA oxygen is inhaled by this week’s draft; before our days are dedicated to debates about whether Greg Oden or Kevin Durant is the true superstar of the 2007 cattle call; before people give themselves strokes wondering how the spindly Durant, who averaged 11 boards a game as a Texas freshman, couldn’t bench 140 pounds; before Florida Gators captain Jokim Noah, who hates the war in Iraq like Paris Hilton hates manual labor, falls down the board (count on it); lets take a second to talk about former NBA Point Guard Kenny Anderson. In a basketball world that just endured a Finals that could be renamed The Sorrow and The Pity, news of Kenny Anderson has me grinning like a fool.
It seems former NBA PG Kenny Anderson has been named new head coach of a CBA squad called – and this is not a typo – the Atlanta Krunk Roll that around on your tongue for a moment: The Atlanta Krunk. At a time when pro hoops are treating hip-hop like a baby treats a diaper, there exists an Atlanta Krunk. What’s next, the DC Go-Gos? The Louisiana Uhhhhhs?
The Krunk’s press release continued by explaining, “Former C&C Music Factory lead vocalist Freedom Williams is the Krunk's franchise majority owner.”
Freedom Williams? From 1991? “Everybody Dance Now?” That dude with that pony tail? Will Bell Biv Devoe now be buying the Dallas Cowboys? Has anyone seen Lisa Stansfield?
But if we can get beyond the Krunk, it’s proper and righteous that Kenny Anderson will remain connected to the game of basketball. Most people who have heard of Anderson will read that last sentence and say, “Kenny Anderson? From the Celtics?” Or at best some older heads might remember Georgia Tech’s gripping trio of Anderson, Dennis Scott and Brian Oliver, nicknamed, in perfect early 90’s fashion, “Lethal Weapon 3.”
But for those of us who grew up in NYC during the Koch years, there were few who ever inspired the awe of that wisp of a high schooler named Kenny Anderson. Four times at Archbishop Molloy he made the New York Post’s All City team. Three times, he earned Parade All American, the first person to do it since a guy named Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Anderson graduated as the all time leading scorer in New York High School history. People discussed him with lowered voices and hushed tones. It was out of respect.
When I was young and too stupid to know better, I played a pick up game with Anderson. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the eruptions of goose bumps. He would have been 14, already renowned, already revered. Less than 6 feet tall and he weighed about as much as my thigh, but could do things on a court that I just had never seen.
It wasn’t so much that he was quick. The Suns’ Leandro Barbosa is quick. Anderson was more like Neo in the Matrix.Whenever he needed to, he would disappear and then reappear at his leisure, just in time to block a shot, steal a ball, or cross someone out of their Converse Weapons.
Anderson played that day with a bemused smile. The whole game was just too easy. At one point I was guarding him on a switch. He casually dribbled toward the elbow. I was sure he’d try to cross me over, break my ankles, and leave me dead as carrion. I got low to the ground, wide base, legs pread, just like my Jersey basketball camp drilled with the repetition of a metronome. Just when I waited for the move, he flipped the ball up with this left hand from about 14 feet away and it gently fell in. I looked over to my buddy Ra and said, “Damn! I didn’t know he could shoot so well lefty.” Ra looked at me funny, replying, “Dave, he’s left handed. He’s been playing this whole game shooting and passing with his right hand.” Remember: 14 years old.
The pros never quite worked out for Kenny Anderson. He made the All Star team once for Jersey and had a couple nice years in Portland, but wasn’t the rare flower we expected to see blossom.
It was bizarre seeing him play at the end of his career in Boston, deferring basic ball handling duties to the whirling turnover dervish, Antoine Walker. Every game was like watching Mozart play the cymbals, so the Cookie Monster could conduct. He was simply a one-dimensional ghost of the player we knew.
And that is why I’m hyped he is back. I’m hyped because Kenny Anderson knows what it means when we say that basketball is the true “beautiful game.” I’m hyped because I refuse to believe his basketball career was meant to be such a fragile whimper. If he can make the Krunk play with the movement, hustle, and flow of his youth, then I will be in the front row wearing a Lil Jon t-shirt chanting “WHAT? YEAH!”.
--Dave Zirin is the author of the new 'Welcome to the Terrordome:' with an intro by Chuck D (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to http://zirin.com/edgeofsports/?p=subscribe&id=1. Contact him at
