Feature/ Pat Burke: Bruce Selcraigon Ireland's only NBA player, Pat Burke, whose infrequent appearances from the Phoenix Suns' bench have drawn a cult following.
Out in the vast Arizona desert where coyotes howl and land barons pave paradise, the NBA's fleet Phoenix Suns have become the world's most beautiful basketball team, and perhaps its best.
Halfway through a gruelling, 82-game season, the run-and-gun Suns have amazing win streaks of 15 and 17 games, the NBA's best point guard in two-time "most valuable player" Steve Nash, and a United Nations assortment of ego-lite Yanks and internationals who have redefined brilliance in American basketball.
But the real news is this curious little phenomenon: near the end of most Suns home games, when they're annihilating some team of selfish millionaires by 20 points, the loudest ovation in their sold-out, 18,000-seat arena comes in the final three or four minutes of the fourth quarter when fans start begging Suns coach Mike D'Antoni to send in the NBA's only Irishman.
"Put in Pat!" the rowdy Phoenicians chant. "We want Burke!" Alas, they don't often get their wish.
Their hero, the bald, Dublin-born centre, star of the Irish national team and multiple winner of championships in Greece and Spain, sits on the end of the Suns' bench behind some uniquely gifted players, so he's played only in 10 of the Suns' 48 games this season. He literally goes weeks without breaking a sweat.
But when a rout is guaranteed and Burke finally rises to strip off his purple-and-orange warm-ups, the US Airways Center sounds like it's filled with screaming O'Houlihans.
Tiny blonde kids start squealing. Moms and dads exchange high-fives and yell as if their own little Paddy was entering the game. Happiest of all, Burke's adoring team-mates - including a Frenchman, Brazilian, Canadian and Kiwi - slap his ample butt and go wild if he scores. The place rocks with anticipation when Burke merely touches the ball. No, this is not normal in the NBA.
What is universally known as "garbage time" - when the game's outcome is settled, few stars remain on the floor and fans have fled to the parking lot - has become a cultural happening in America's sixth-largest city.
Did you see what Pat Burke did last night?
In those precious few final moments his loyal following is often rewarded with an array of smooth, left-handed three-point shots, swift dunks, solid picks and overall hustle that show why he helped Panathinaikos AO Athens win three consecutive Greek titles (1999-2001) and Real Madrid win the 2004-05 Spanish championship. At 6ft 11in and 245lb, the 33-year-old is still in marvellous shape and runs the floor like he did (1993-97) at Alabama's Auburn University.
Some of Burke's end-of-the-game exploits, like when he hit a trio of three-pointers in the final 1:26 of a blow-out game against Sacramento in December, are such crowd favourites they've been immortalised on the internet's YouTube site - even in Spanish.
Delighted reporters are only too happy to hop on the Burke Bandwagon. He's funny, self-effacing, perceptive, quotable.
After his flurry of long-range bombs against the Kings, a TV crew actually rushed the floor to grab Burke rather than the routinely incomparable Nash, who had just finished handing out a near-record 20 assists. Of course, Nash doesn't mind. Everyone loves the jovial onion-head from Ireland.
A communications and theatre major in college, Burke has tried to make the best of his bench-sitting plight by starring in some parody ads that the Suns PR department produces and shows on giant TV screens at their home games.
Now downloaded tens of thousands of times from YouTube, the best faux advert sublimely spoofs American political ads and shows a mock-earnest Burke running for Congress by picking up trash and acting tough on crime.
Everyone loved his campaign slogan: "Pat Burke . . . because he's just not that busy right now."
Such deft comedy isn't typical stuff in the all-too-serious world of American pro sports, but when you're ploughing through the NBA like it's a girls' church league, you can afford to make fun of yourself.
"Pat is funnier than hell," says D'Antoni. "He's the funniest guy on the team."
"Everyone loves him around Phoenix," says team-mate Kurt Thomas, who plays in front of Burke in D'Antoni's eight-man rotation. "Everyone wants to see him do well."
That they do. But Burke wishes they could see it all from his perspective.
While the exaggerated cheering for Burke when he merely does his job might seem heart-warming to fans, to a professional athlete it can sound like Saturday soccer parents going nuts when their team's clumsiest child scores a goal.
"I wonder if those kids cheering for him like he's some sort of 12-year-old know that he's worked his ass off and is better than 99 percent of the basketball players in the world," says Sports Illustratedwriter Jack McCallum, whose recent book, 7 Seconds or Less, documents the Suns' 2005-06 season. "You can see Pat struggling with it at times, but I'm sure the fans don't have a clue."
There is a delicate balance to this feel-good story.
Burke is the consummate team player and he knew what his role would be when he signed with the Suns in 2005 for just under €600,000. (The average 2007 NBA salary is nearly €4 million). But many nights he sees opposing players who are less talented but get more playing time.
Sometimes the Suns have a game under control and he doesn't even get in for garbage time. To cope, Burke just tries to keep communicating with his coaches and not over-analyse everything.
"But everyone who is sitting on the bench has a competitor's heart," he says. "There's a reason why we've made it to this level as professionals. I work hard. I give 100 per cent in practice, and my team-mates know that. It's frustrating . . . I hear people say all the time, 'how do those guys play 82 games?' And I think, 'how do you watch 82 games'.
"In the NBA, you can't just go in once every five games. There's a confidence level, a rhythm you have to have. When you're out there regularly you know what you can do. When you're not, you're always second-guessing yourself."
His fellow sub, Eric Piatkowski, a 13-year veteran shooting guard, says: "People look at us and say, 'I'd do anything to get an NBA paycheck. Just sit there and basically be a cheerleader', but your pride gets in the way."
D'Antoni, a former NBA guard who became an Italian League legend after 13 seasons with Milan, appreciates what Burke is going through. He's even apologised to Burke in post-game meetings for not being able to get him more minutes.
"They get paid pretty good money to sit on the bench," D'Antoni told me recently, "but it's very hard on those players. They go through a range of emotions. But Pat has been great.
"He practises hard and at any moment he's ready to go. That's all you can ask as a coach. You can't ask him to always be happy with his role."
JUST HOWIrish is Patrick John Burke? Well, you wouldn't know it from his accent, but he sprouted in his mom's hometown, Tullamore, the youngest of six kids. His parents, Michael, from Claremorris, Co Mayo, and Christina, then a registered nurse, had relatives in Cleveland, Ohio, and had already had three children in the States before returning to Ireland in the early 1970s. When Pat was four, in 1977, the Burkes returned to Cleveland and they've remained in the States since.
"But my parents made sure Ireland was always a part of me," says Burke, who hopes to do the same with his own twin boys, Graceson and Sadler.
"We'd go to Irish dances and be around our Irish relatives in Ohio. I never really noticed how Irish we were until my friends would come over to the house, talk to my dad, and then later ask me, 'What the hell did he say?' We'd go on family road trips and my dad would always be hunting for a Paddy Reilly tape."
When the family moved to Cape Coral, Florida, Burke was a skinny 16-year-old, but he stood 6ft 7in. He tried and quit American football, and though he loved ice hockey, he grew so quickly it became too expensive to outfit him.
"Then one day at high school I was looking over my class schedule," Burke recalls, "and this voice behind me says, 'and your last class is basketball'. That was the coach. I had never played the game, but I wanted to try."
Three years later he was good enough to get a full four-year scholarship to Auburn University, which plays in one of America's toughest collegiate leagues. (A full decade later, Auburn athletic staff remember him well. "We all loved Pat," said the sports information director. "He was Irish. He loved his Guinness.")
Although by then he was thoroughly Americanised, Burke never objected to becoming a pro in Europe, where over seven seasons and 211 Euroleague games he averaged eight points and five rebounds.
"I've played with and against some unbelievable players, like Dejan Bodiroga," Burke says, citing the Serbian legend he played with in Athens but who few Americans would recognise.
"He crushed players on the USA team when he played against them, but I think his niche in Europe is too strong for him to leave."
Although American basketball fans' respect for European players has increased exponentially with their exposure to NBA stars such as Dirk Nowitzki, Manu Ginobili and Burke's French team-mate, Boris Diaw, Burke knows few Yanks appreciate the quality of European teams.
"I've learned not to tell people about some game I played in Tallaght against Slovakia, or some great shot I hit in Barcelona that silenced a crowd. They just look at me funny. It doesn't mean a thing to them."
Now heading into his fourth year with the Irish team, Burke quite enjoys being a star in his home country.
"Pat's our man. He's our stud," says assistant coach Marty Conlon, an Irish-born New Yorker with a long NBA career.
"He's a leader in many ways. He played huge for us against Slovakia in '05. But the coolest thing is that he has such a big family following in Ireland. He must have 30 relatives at all our games."
THREE DAYSafter Christmas and the best game in the NBA tonight is in Dallas, Texas, where in about eight hours the Suns will face the equally-tough Mavericks, who went to the NBA Finals last year (losing to Miami) and could easily return in June.
A small covey of reporters waits in the concrete bowels of the American Airlines Arena to intercept the Suns before their pre-game "shootaround", a light morning practice where players mainly stretch and trot through their opponents' plays. In the empty coliseum, which seats 19,200, TV crews string miles of cable for the live nationwide telecast. (Every NBA game is shown live somewhere.) Photographers mount their remote-controlled Nikons behind the glass backboards.
As the Suns step off the bus from their luxury hotel you know immediately from the businesslike body language and brotherly teasing that this is a happy, mature team. They've won 16 of their last 17 games. They are the gold standard in American basketball - not just for their record, but for their style and camaraderie.
Everyone looks relaxed, confident, focused. Seemingly a team without cliques, superstars like Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion (all named to the NBA All-Star squad) are just as comfortable hanging with Burke or injured reserves like Piatkowski and New Zealander Sean Marks.
"It's not like some teams in the NBA," says Burke, "where the starters and the subs don't really mix. It's a cliche, but we're like family."
As Burke leaves to return to the hotel for an afternoon nap, he laughs when I suggest this might not be the best night to see him in action.
"Yeah, I doubt we'll win by 30," he says, smiling.
The Mavericks have already beaten the Suns once this season, 119-112, and they eliminated the Suns last year from the play-offs.
For Burke to get off the bench tonight would require an epidemic of food poisoning. True to form, tonight's game proves to be desperately tight for four quarters until, with one second on the clock, the wondrously talented Nowitzki hits a jumper to win the game, 101-99.
Burke was literally at the end of the bench all game long, sitting next to the injured Piatkowski and Marks, who were both in street clothes. Sometimes Burke was engaged, dipping his head into the team huddle to hear strategy he would never get to execute. Sometimes he cheered.
Sometimes, no matter the score or tension in the game, he stared off into the crowd, his mind momentarily somewhere else.
If you expect him to wave a towel and bounce off the bench with every Suns basket, perhaps you've not played a September-to-June season involving over 50 flights and hotels. It's a marathon won with rest and self-discipline.
But you needn't feel sorry for Burke.
These are big boys who get paid very well and are financially set for life. But they are, above all, world-class athletes. Their identity, their sense of self-worth, no matter all the pep talks from coaches, doesn't come from the glamour or even the shared sacrifice in winning. It comes from the most elemental of all things in sport.
Playing the game.
