EDNEY HAS KEY TO LOCKOUT; FORMER UCLA PLAYER MAKES HIS WAY TO LITHUANIA.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Kenny Anderson makes it sound as though poverty is a three-car garage. Patrick Ewing would have you believe those bells the Salvation Army Santas are ringing this holiday season toll for locked-out basketball players.

Perspective has been held hostage by the NBA for 168 days now, its captors revealing through their communiques that even though they can palm a basketball with the greatest of ease, their grip on the real world is tenuous at best.

The voice of the lockout that drones on and on, so distant and defiant, doesn't speak for the NBA's silent majority. The players left disenfranchised by the work stoppage aren't difficult to locate, except for a conversation. In the case of former UCLA standout Tyus Edney, even his own family has a hard time getting a hold of him.

You can try ringing him on his cell phone, but it's a gamble, and not because some seedy photographer might be monitoring the call. It's a roll of the dice, negotiating the time difference and the language and the scratchy connection to touch base with Edney in Lithuania.

He has called the Baltic state home since August, reluctantly leaving his wife and their newborn daughter behind in Northridge to play for Lithuanian Basketball League's version of the Chicago Bulls. Somebody's got to keep Kennedi in diapers, and if that means Edney misses her first words and steps and her baby's breath on his neck, well, he hopes that makes union leader Billy Hunter happy.

Edney, 25, backed up Anderson in Boston last season, for something less than the millionaire's wages that afforded Anderson the luxury of owning eight cars and allotting himself $10,000 a month in mad money. Edney earned $400,000 before taxes in 1998, a king's ransom by most people's standards but far less than the league average of $2.6 million, and not enough to secure his future.

Dare we say the percentage of gross revenues that the owners and players' union are haggling over is largely irrelevant to players of Edney's ilk?

As a free agent, Edney couldn't be sure where - or even if - he'd be playing in 1998-99 even before the work stoppage stalled everybody's NBA careers. The league's padlocked doors made it impossible for Edney to shop himself around to clubs over the summer. When Kaunas Zalgiris came after him in August, Edney decided he couldn't afford not to jump at its offer, which included the use of an apartment and a car.

The timing was awkward, what with his wife Buffy just weeks away from delivering the couple's first child. Edney had friends in the NBA who told him he was crazy, not just for leaving his family but for abandoning the NBA before a single game had been canceled. The contract Edney signed with Zalgiris stipulated that he must see the season through to its end, in April or May.

Four months after Edney kissed his wife, his week-old daughter and the NBA goodbye, some of the same friends who thought him foolish are scrambling to secure playing gigs in Europe as the prospect of salvaging the NBA season dims. It's not a good sign when Edney and his wife are managing to have telephone conversations that last longer than the latest NBA bargaining session.

A lot of what Edney has to say in those calls, you could glean without resorting to the use of any illegal electronic device. The way he describes it, it's a whole different way of life on the other side of the world.

Edney had some idea of what he was getting himself into, having watched George Zidek, a native of the Czech Republic, struggle to bridge the same cultural chasm in college. The two basketball players were roommates at UCLA for two years, during which time Edney talked a discouraged Zidek out of returning home more than once.

Now Zidek is returning the favor. The center, who finished the 1997-98 season glued to the bench in Seattle, is the leading scorer on the same Lithuanian squad that employs Edney. Zidek and his wife often have Edney over for a home-cooked meal, no small pleasure given that the first McDonald's preceded Edney to Lithuania by only a few months.

Edney lives over a restaurant and feeds off the local ambiance. The Lithuanians eat up their basketball, especially the exploits of Zalgiris, which counts among its co-owners one of the country's Olympic heroes, Portland Trailblazer center Arvydas Sabonis.

Like the Lakers, Knicks or Bulls, Zalgiris has its own celebrity following. Among those who cheer the team is the president of the country, Valdas Adamkus, a native son who resided in Chicago for 40 years after fleeing Communist rule. He served as an official in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before recently returning to his roots and successfully running for office.

Neither the Dariaus ir Gireno Sports Palace (capacity 4,350) nor the Kausta Sports Hall (capacity 1,000) where Zalgiris plays its games is likely to be confused with the old Chicago Staduim or the United Center. Not that Edney is complaining. The team performs nightly in front of rollicking sellout crowds, which is more than Edney could say about his days as a Sacramento King or Boston Celtic.

Edney is averaging 21 minutes, 9.7 points and 4.7 assists for Zalgiris, which finished the LKL regular season at 18-0. The squad will play in the EuroLeague for the next few months before rejoining the LKL playoffs in progress in April.

When Edney's parents or wife reach him on his cell phone these days, they can hear something loud and clear through the static and the few-seconds delay. More than homesickness, there is unbridled joy in Edney's voice.

It's a shame Edney had to travel so far to reclaim his lost love for the game. What's sadder still is that so many of his brethren back home have strayed so far from what first attracted them to basketball.

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Photo

PHOTO (Color) Boston's Tyus Edney, right, in April 1998.

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press