NY Times Article On Kenny Anderson

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

          November 24, 1998

          ON PRO BASKETBALL

          He Keeps Cars and Helps Others

    

          By MIKE WISE

          No, he has not sold the Mercedes.

          Kenny Anderson's fleet of eight automobiles remains
          intact -- four weeks after he was quoted in The New
          York Times saying, jokingly, that the financial strain
          of the National Basketball Association lockout might
          force him to part with one of his luxury rides.

          The cars are not targets of the repo man. Instead, they
          have come under siege from an angry public that can
          barely afford to see Anderson play. Columnists took
          their satirical shots, calling him a whiner. Talk-show
          callers who had barely heard of the New York schoolboy
          legend wanted to know what world he was living in. In
          his weekly HBO monologue, Chris Rock teased him, too.

          Poor Kenny, they said. He might have to do without
          tinted windows.

          When the hype finished escalating, Anderson, the Boston
          Celtics' 28-year-old point guard, had become the emblem
          of the disconnected, filthy-rich athlete. In the
          N.B.A., Kenny's cars had become Imelda's shoes.

          It would be hard to imagine Anderson as the same
          unassuming, slump-shouldered guy who handed out 400
          free turkeys in a small room of an apartment complex in
          Rego Park, Queens, on Sunday. But there was Kenny
          Anderson, shaking hands, signing trading cards and
          dealing with old neighbors who said, "Wow, I didn't
          know you had eight cars."

          "They looked at the luxurious and materialistic things,
          but I don't think they looked at the financial
          picture," Anderson said of the article in The Times. "I
          guess I found out, being in the business I'm in and
          dealing with the media, people are going to have their
          own opinions about everything."

          The turkey giveaway was not a lockout-inspired image
          boost. Hardly any news media knew about it, and only
          one photographer showed. The fact is, Anderson has been
          donating time and money to the community since he
          signed his first professional contract in 1992. He
          still owns an apartment in this modest complex, using
          it as his home away from home.

          The people who filed out of the apartment complex's
          basement with their Thanksgiving dinner bundled up in
          plastic did not hold him in awe as much as they did in
          esteem. "This is so nice of you," said a hard-featured
          woman of maybe 50. Anderson thanked her for coming.
          Moments later, a teen-age boy approached Anderson with
          a trading card from when he played with the Charlotte
          Hornets.

          "You got another pen?" Anderson asked, thinking that
          black felt tip might be better than ink. "Oh, wait.
          This works." The kid smiled.

          When the article about Anderson's finances ran, I never
          expected him to become a target. The idea was to show
          where a $6 million salary goes and how an N.B.A. player
          is not the average worker in a labor dispute.

          Few noticed his fledgling business, which provides work
          for friends from his old neighborhood, or the monthly
          mortgage payment for the house he bought for his
          mother. Instead, the focus was on the extravagances,
          the $75,000 a year in car insurance and maintenance and
          his personal monthly allowance -- $10,000 of what he
          called "hanging-out money." What else do millionaires
          spend their money on?

          The backlash Anderson suffered made me wonder if I
          should have followed around an N.B.A. owner to see how
          he spent his money. If the season ever does get under
          way, Anderson will be the victim of a few chants behind
          the bench. For a warped fan, it's plenty of ammunition.

          The day the article ran, union officials called
          Anderson's accountant, Scott Bercu, and lambasted him
          for saying, "These guys have got to concede for a very
          simple reason: they're losing money every time they
          don't play a game."

          Said Anderson: "I didn't hear anything personally from
          them, but I know a lot of people are thinking about it.
          I can't lose any sleep about that. You wrote the
          article. I didn't feel it was bad. I didn't feel it was
          great. But it was out there.

          "What I found out is, people are going to have opinions
          about things and they might not be the same opinions
          that other people have."

          He contended that the numbers obtained from his
          accountant were skewed, but would not go into
          specifics. "I'm very smart with my money," he said. "I
          know the value of a dollar and I know the value of my
          money. So I'm not going to be stupid enough to just
          spend it like crazy.

          "But at the same time, I'm going to live my life. I'm
          on my second contract in the league. I came in the
          league making great money. That's when I bought all my
          cars. I had a car fetish. Now, in 1998, most of those
          cars are considered old. If I would've known what I
          know now, I probably wouldn't have that many cars. But
          that was my life. It's not as bad as it might seem."

          The turkeys were gone Sunday in 90 minutes, with word
          spreading quickly on 57th Avenue that the great point
          guard from Archbishop Molloy was handing them out along
          with his family and friends. Anderson, his mother,
          Joan, his sisters Danielle and Sandra and the
          volunteers Renee Harris, Al Blake and Loretta Henderson
          had made sure everyone went home with something. After
          the last turkey had been given out, the man with eight
          cars went upstairs to eat his mother's cooking and
          watch the Jets game.

          "I took a lot of lumps in my career," he said, smiling.
          "I don't feel like I took a lot of lumps for this,
          believe it or not. Some people don't even know of The
          New York Times. They don't even read The New York
          Times. I'm not knocking anybody. I mean, the corporate
          world probably reads it. But a lot of my friends who I
          deal with, they read the New York Post comics and look
          at the pictures."

      

                Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company