You can't help but look, even though you really want to look away.

Instead you stare. At his hair, gelled into a blonde, rooster-like crown.

At his arms, for goodness sakes, festooned with so many colorful tattoos he looks like a cartoon character as he bounds about the court like an energizer, uh, ostrich.

I'm talking about Chris Andersen, the Denver Nuggets reserve center/forward, though you probably thought I was referring to Dennis Rodman, the player whose spirit Andersen has revived.

Like Rodman, he is one of those guys you couldn't make up. You couldn't create him because the tale would be too implausible.

It would go something like: Six-foot-10 white guy from Central Texas, who was abandoned by his mom because she couldn't afford to take care of him and his sister; who was stashed in a childrens' home; who played about a minute of college ball; who played in a Chinese League; who got thrown out of the NBA for drug use; and who looks like a parent's worst nightmare (though his own mom, who eventually regained her kids, rides a Harley and has tattoos down to her ankles), suddenly becomes one of the most valued contributors on a team that just might reach the NBA Finals.

And whom everyone calls Birdman.

Andersen didn't play in Game 4 of the Western conference semifinals Sunday because he was in the locker room wrestling with the effects of a bad meal that afternoon at the team's hotel. He lost. It's not a coincidence that the Nuggets lost, too, 119-117, to the Dallas Mavericks; or that Dirk Nowitzki scored a game-high 44. Had Birdman not been clipped back in the locker room, you've gotta think Dirk's night would not have been so easy.

In Game 3 Andersen fouled out in just 11 minutes. (You almost have to try to foul out in 11 minutes.) In Game 2 he had eight points and nine boards in 25 minutes.

Andersen isn't a stat machine. He's averaged 7.8 points and 6.3 rebounds, along with two blocks, in eight playoff games. But when he's on the court for the Nuggets, his presence can outweigh everyone but Mr. Big Shot, Chauncey Billups.

On defense, he's always where it seems he shouldn't be, around the ball, usually swooping in from the weak side to block it. Offensively he's more effective than he looks like he should be, scoring mostly "hustle hoops" around the rim with an occasional J thrown in for entertainment purposes only.

It's Rodman, the Re-Mix, from the childhood dramas to the hair to the tattoos to the indefatigable presence he has on the court.

And the fact that you can't look away, even though you want to.

 AP photo