Father drafts son in SlamBall, Bryan Bell-Anderson joins Ozone

Ozone’s seventh pick came with the league’s most unmistakable family twist: head coach Trevor Anderson called the name of his son, Bryan Bell-Anderson, in the first round on Father’s Day. The selection gave Ozone a 22-year-old gunner from Sarasota, Florida, whose arrival linked the sport’s present to one of its best-known former stars.

Bell-Anderson entered SlamBall listed at 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, but the profile that made him more than a feel-good story was built over years of football. At Columbia University, he developed into a dependable defensive back, starting nine games in 2022 and finishing that season with 23 tackles and one interception. Across his college career, he piled up more than 75 total tackles, added one pick-six and broke up 17 passes, production that points to the kind of timing and physical edge that can translate in a game built on speed, contact and space.

His background stretches deeper than football. Bell-Anderson majored in architecture at Columbia, taught himself to play piano and saxophone, and grew up around the sport through his father and Grant Hill, the former NBA star who served as a family friend and mentor. That combination of discipline, polish and recognizable lineage gave Ozone something the league has long sought: a player who feels both credible on the floor and easy to explain to new fans.

The family angle also fit SlamBall’s broader return. The league came back on ESPN on July 21, 2023, with eight teams, a month-long season and playoffs staged in Las Vegas. In that setting, a No. 7 overall pick with a built-in story mattered. Bell-Anderson was not just Trevor Anderson’s son; he was a former Columbia starter with a state-title pedigree from Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, where he helped win the Florida Class 8A championship in 2017 and reached the final again the next year.

Ozone’s bet was that the pedigree would meet the moment. Bell-Anderson later added another layer to his case when he won SlamBall’s dunk contest after an audience vote could not separate him from KyShawn Jones. For a league trying to sell itself as more than a novelty, that is the kind of player who helps turn a comeback into an identity.