Greg Anthony

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Gregory Carleton Anthony (born November 15, 1967 in Las Vegas, Nevada) is an American former NBA basketball player and current personality on the ESPN family of networks. Anthony also contributes to Yahoo! Sports as a college basketball analyst, as of December 2007.

A graduate of Rancho High School in Las Vegas, Anthony played his freshman year of college basketball for the University of Portland before transferring to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In his junior season with UNLV, the Runnin' Rebels won the 1990 NCAA Championship game over Duke with Anthony starting at point guard. This talented team was coached by Jerry Tarkanian and also included future NBAers Stacey Augmon and Larry Johnson.

Anthony was drafted by the New York Knicks in the first round of the 1991 NBA Draft, with the reputation of being a poor outside shooter but an excellent defender. He served as a backup point guard and defensive specialist, and typified the hard-nosed defensive reputation of Pat Riley's Knicks.

On the night of March 23, 1993, Anthony played an important part in Knicks history when his team got involved in a bench-clearing brawl during a game with the Phoenix Suns. In street clothes due to an ankle injury when the brawl broke out, Anthony left the Knicks bench and punched Suns guard Kevin Johnson. The brawl was the largest in the NBA to date, in terms of games suspended and fines levied against both teams. The NBA suspended Anthony for five games and fined him $20,500 for the punch he threw; the Suns and Johnson had asked that he be suspended for the remainder of the season.

In the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals, he would become reviled in New York for (in Reggie Miller's words, "slipping and falling") allowing Miller to steal the inbounding pass and make his second straight three to tie the game. The Pacers would go on to win Game 1 and take the series.

In 1995, Anthony was picked up in the expansion draft by the Vancouver Grizzlies, where he was the full-time starter at point guard for two seasons. After a journeyman career, in which he played mostly off the bench for Seattle, Portland, Chicago and Milwaukee, he retired in 2002.

Upon retirement, Anthony joined ESPN as an analyst for both NBA coverage on ESPN and ABC and his voice is sometimes confused with Baseball Hall Of Famer Joe Morgan of baseball telecast. He has been politically active with the Republican Party since his days at UNLV, where he graduated with a degree in political science and served as the vice chairman of Nevada's Young Republicans.

[edit] External links

• NBA: TNT vs. ESPN
• Career Statistics
• ESPN.com: Greg Anthony archive
• PRO BASKETBALL; Suns' Biggest Beef Is Over Anthony's 'Sucker Punch'