DAYTON, OH - MARCH 07: Obi Toppin #1 and Trey Landers #3 of the Dayton Flyers celebrate after the game against the George Washington Colonials at UD Arena on March 7, 2020 in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton defeated George Washington 76-51 and won the Atlantic 10 Conference regular season title. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
If you ever want to know the truth about anything basketball related ask New York City hoop legend, Kenny Anderson.
The former New Jersey Nets point guard appeared on the Heavy Live Show With me on Wednesday and discussed the New York Knicks‘ offseason moves.
“I just like Obi Toppin,” Kenny Anderson told me.
“I loved him when he played at Dayton. I really don’t pay attention to the Knicks. At all. But when they drafted him, I was like, “Wow!” I thought that he could’ve been a top three pick, and they let him go to 8th and the Knicks picked him up. And me, I’m not a big fan of the New York Knicks. My family… all of them were New York Knicks fans. The 70’s, the 80’s they were all Knicks because that’s where they’re from – New York. But they always came and supported me at the New Jersey Net games and that’s what we called it, you know? I’m a big fan of Charles Oakley and when he had that really bad incident at The Garden I fell off. I didn’t like them then; you know, Spike Lee those are good guys and I really don’t have any respect for the Knicks ownership so…the Knicks is DONE.”
Million Dollar Question: How can the Knicks win him over?
“There’s nothing that can win me over,” the Lefrak City, Queens native told me.
“I’m a New Jersey Net/ Brooklyn Net. They can’t win me over. But to see good basketball, to get better? You know, they did one thing that I really enjoyed this year and what they did was draft Obi Toppin. And I just love him and I hope he has a good career in the NBA. And I believe he will just by working extremely hard on his game. But me, I could care less about the Knicks.”
Anderson was gracious when it came to the Knicks’ hiring of Tom Thibodeau. “He’s a very good coach hands down,” he told the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“But I really don’t know. I think it’s going to be 3 to 4 years where he could turn the table on this team to get them to play team defense like he had going on in Chicago but, the NBA is a little different now. You can’t work the kids out. You can’t work the men out hard like he’s capable of or like he normally does. So it’s going to be interesting, but Thibbs is a great coach. A great coach.”
An Archbishop Molloy High School and Georgia Tech legend, Kenny Anderson was the New Jersey Nets’ second overall pick in the 1991 NBA Draft. During his days in New Jersey he played with Derrick Coleman and the late Drazen Petrovic under late head coach Chuck Daly.
Anderson would last five years with the Nets before he’d become an NBA journeyman in stints with the Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Boston Celtics, Seattle SuperSonics, New Orleans Hornets, Indiana Pacers, Atlanta Hawks and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Anderson ended his basketball career in 2006 after an overseas stint with Lithuania’s Žalgiris Kaunas.
Currently he coaches college basketball at Fisk Univerity in Tennessee.