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Getty Former NBA Player Kenny Anderson on stage during the MR. CHIBBS Opening Night screening.
Retired NBA All-Star Kenny Anderson was recently hospitalized after having a stroke.
“Doing well,” Anderson told me via text message on Tuesday evening.
Anderson, 48 finished his first season as head coach at Fisk University in the NAIA.
Fisk extended their “thoughts and prayers” to the Anderson family.
A Queens, NY native, Anderson, a 6-2 point guard was a four-time Parade All-American and New York’s Mr. Basketball in 1989.Anderson led the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets to the Final Four in 1990. He was selected by the New Jersey Nets with the second pick in the 1991 NBA Draft.
He played for nine teams in his 14-year NBA career and was the youngest player in the league in his rookie year, and averaged seven points, two rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game.
He had grit with the Nets.
One of Anderson’s memorable moments with the Nets was on a February 28, 1993 nationally televised NBA on NBC game against the New York Knicks.
With 8:52 remaining in the third quarter, Anderson stole the ball from Knicks center Patrick Ewing, who was double teamed.
Moving the ball at breakneck speed and almost slipping out-of-bounds on a Nets 3-on-1 fastbreak, Knicks guard John Starks literally bodyslammed Anderson while he was in mid-air.
Anderson landed awkwardly on his back while trying to catch his fall with his hands and broke a bone in his left hand. Starks was assessed a flagrant foul and Anderson would be officially diagnosed with a left wrist fracture.The injury would cost him the remainder of that season, Anderson’s second year in the league.
“Yeah we were rolling,” Anderson told me on Scoop B Radio.
“That was my first year under Chuck Daly and he gave me the ball and let me rock. We were in second place.”
It all happened so fast, but Anderson remembers it all like it was yesterday. “I was averaging like 16 [points], 8 [rebounds] and 9 [assists]. We were just rolling man. But it was a bad moment with one of those crazy, 90’s fouls.”
Anderson says the injury and foul are now both an afterthought. “You forgive and you just move on,” he said.
But speaking with Anderson, the nostalgia of the 90s is still there. It’s like it was yesterday.“But when it came to the Knicks and the Nets, that competition just came out of all of us,” he said.
“Those were the Knicks teams with Starks, Oakley, Ewing and my man, Mase. But we were rolling, man and we were really going at each other.”
As for Anderson’s current health, per the New York Daily News: Anderson was hospitalized after suffering a stroke. His wife, Natasha, released a statement regarding her husband’s status.
“We would like to thank everyone for reaching out on behalf of Kenny,” Anderson’s wife, Natasha, said in a statement. “Our family is extremely grateful for all the prayers and love that we have received over the last few days. We appreciate you continuing to respect our privacy as Kenny heals.”
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Kenny Anderson, Nets, Celtics All Star, NYC Legend ‘Doing Well’ After Stroke