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With TNT Sports in the middle of broadcasting the NCAA Tournament along with their partners at CBS Sports, it represents an opportunity this week for one of the rising stars in sports media to make his debut with the network. Michael Grady will step into the TNT broadcast booth for the first time calling Mavericks-Kings on Tuesday night alongside Greg Anthony.
Friday’s game was also telecast on NBA TV and the network sent a broadcast crew filled with familiar names to Orlando. The crew included former Magic forward Grant Hill and Greg Anthony, the father of Cole Anthony. They were joined by reporter and former Orlando forward Dennis Scott as well as play-by-play broadcaster Spero Dedes. The younger Anthony spoke with the Sentinel pre-game about his father calling one of his NBA games for the first time. “He’s pretty good at what he does, so it’s cool seeing him on the sidelines,” Anthony said.
Greg Anthony averaged 7.3 points, 4.0 assists and 1.2 steals throughout his 11-year career and still offers advice to his son. Anthony said the two talk after almost every Magic game. “He’s still my Pops,” Cole said. “He always has points for me. He’s not steering me wrong, so I’m always listening.”
On the night before the draft, he cried. The next day, he landed with the Magic, taken at No. 15. “This was a kid who went into his freshman year as being regarded as a special talent, as a legit top-five kid, blah blah blah,” Greg Anthony said. “All that stuff happened and the injury, so the narrative kind of changed on him. So he went from being one of those guys to now all of a sudden a project. But he never really stopped being one of those guys. If you really looked into who he was and what kind of player he was and really watched him, that was really the only time he was inefficient.”
Mike Vorkunov: Greg Anthony, on a Turner Sports conference call, throws out a comparison between these Knicks and the '90s Knicks teams. "My 90s Knicks teams," he says, "we weren't that good. We had one great player and we just had a bunch of bulldogs. In a lot of ways that's how they are."
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TNT also is using Pelicans velvet-voiced play-by-player Joel Meyers (the former NBC NFL announcer) and Golden State Warriors announcer Bob Fitzgerald to call first-round games, with former Heat guard Jim Jackson and ex-NBA point guard Greg Anthony as game analysts.
Dee Brown: (Laughs loudly) That’s not true. P never beat me in practice. He never beat me in a drill. He never beat me in one-on-one. I told him, “Hey, I don’t try to go and rap. Don’t try to come on the basketball court and shoot jumpers with me. You ain’t got a chance.” I told him that to his face. He tried. He tried hard. And yeah, as a rookie, I’d run him off screens, I’d throw an elbow here, Antonio Davis would give him a little hip-check there. So yeah, he went through it. But as far as me, I was one of the captains, one of the five or six best players on the team. I wasn’t worried about Master P, trust me. I was worried about freaking Greg Anthony and Mookie Blaylock. I wasn’t worried about Master P.
It’s only a matter of time now until it becomes a reality for the son of former NBA guard Greg Anthony. Friday afternoon, the Upper West Side native decided he would not return to North Carolina for his sophomore year, telling The Post he was going pro and signing with Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management.
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“It’s really one of the best feelings you can have, knowing all your hard work is coming together to live your dream,” Anthony said in an exclusive phone interview. “It’s still a ways away, not knowing when the draft is going to be, but an opportunity to pretty much call myself a pro soon is surreal. It’s really one of the best feelings ever.”
Scouts and analysts are split on Cole Anthony, North Carolina’s stud freshman point guard, who has yet to announce his intentions to return to school or go pro. Some forecast that Anthony will fall into the low teens in the NBA draft, if he does forego his final three years of college eligibility. Others believe the son of former NBA point guard Greg Anthony, who will turn 20 on May 15, will be a top-five pick or possibly will fall to his hometown Knicks at No. 6. Projections are across the board for the Upper West Side native who has been in the public eye since starting as a freshman at Catholic school Archbishop Molloy in Queens. “I’ve gotten the complete spectrum,” former NBA point guard and ACC Network analyst Cory Alexander, who coached Anthony for one year as an assistant at powerhouse Oak Hill Academy, said in a phone interview. “Some people love him, and some people would not want him on their team for whatever reason.”
Two NBA scouts offered differing opinions. One scout said he sees Anthony as more of a scorer than a point guard and someone who needs the ball in his hands. ESPN draft analyst Fran Fraschilla had a similar viewpoint, raving about Anthony’s athleticism and star potential, but worrying about his inefficiency for a player drafted in the top five or six. “I just don’t think he wins you games,” the scout said.
Now nearly 19 years later, Anthony is a proud papa who gets sentimental watching his highly recruited son, Cole, lead the offense at a Team USA practice during the recent Hoop Summit in Portland. “It was my first child, so it was emotional,” Greg Anthony told The Undefeated. “We played on a Friday night and I flew home Saturday so he could be born. It was just quite an experience. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, so every time they tried to get him out, his heart rate would drop. So for a while they thought we had to do a C-section.
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