Down From the Mountains

July 23, 2002 - NBA G League (G League) News Release

North Charleston Lowgators fans can watch NBDL Rookie of the Year Fred House on ESPN2 today at 2 p.m. ET, when House and the Memphis Grizzlies take on the Utah Jazz in the Rocky Mountain Revue in Salt Lake City.

House was also a prominent character in the ESPN reality series "Down Low: Life in the D-League" and played on ESPN2 over 20 times as a member of the Lowgators last season.

Two more games from the Rocky Mountain Revue will be broadcast by ESPN2 on Thursday. Phoenix and Denver square off at 2 p.m. ET and Memphis meets Chicago at 10 p.m. ET

Who is Chris Anderson?

from today's ESPN NBA Insider.... Terry Brown

Who is Chris Anderson? And why is he dunking on my favorite player?

In his two Rocky Mountain Revue games for the Nuggets, spanning 34 total minutes, he's totaled 19 points, eight boards, five steals, two blocks and one assist on 7 of 9 shooting to lead the entire Revue at 77 percent . . . yet no one knows who he is.

Rumor has it he played a few games for the Nuggets last season, snapped his right wrist, sprained his left shoulder, yet still put up 17 points and pulled down nine boards in a single game against Utah. He'll tell you that he once scored 60 or so points in a single high school game and once tallied 27 points, 27 rebounds and 27 blocks in another during his prep career in Iola, Texas, a tiny 1A school with a graduating class of 34. But where the hell is Iola?

He's listed at 6-foot-10, 230 pounds, so how did he fit all those tattoos, six at last count, on that skinny frame, his favorite being the "God's Grace" running down his left triceps in Old English, not to be confused with the "Good Ole' Boyz" running across his right chest? Who knows whether he got those before or after playing his only collegiate season at Blinn J.C. And, by the way, where the hell is Blinn? Why did he go there instead of, say, Duke . . . Michigan . . . or UCLA, perhaps?

You can read that he was the first player ever selected in the inaugural NBDL draft AND first-ever "call up" to the NBA later that season. But how did he get from Iola to Blinn to Taylorsville, Utah for this Rocky Mountain Revue where the poor guy is trying to change from his game uniform to baggy blue jeans and two diamond studs in his ears while print, radio and TV types are crowding him with questions about the time he blocked Karl Malone's shot as a rookie.

Listed to his southern drawl, how he talks about the 7-and-a-half pound bass he once caught in a small Iola pond back in the day, how he admires KG, believes the Nuggets are going to win a lot more games this year, smiles and says: "If you're not having fun, then you're just not playing the game."

He is polite, engaging, you almost want to tug at the soul patch underneath his chin just to make sure he's real, and you wonder why this white kid from the south hasn't been your favorite player all along?

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