Ahead of the Competition : Woodbridge Center Burgess Is Good, and Looking to Get Even Better

Of all the accomplishments, all the points and all the accolades the county’s leading scorer, Chris Burgess, has accumulated in his young life, nothing is more important than the rusting, bent rim on the blacktop courts behind the gym at Woodbridge High.

That’s where Burgess, the Warriors’ 6-foot-10 junior center, slammed home a monster dunk on his first day at the school.

That mangled rim is proof of just how dominating this baby-faced teenager, rapidly becoming one of the most sought-after college recruits in the county, can be with a ball in his hands.

And he has the ball in his hands often.

To say the Warrior offense centers on Burgess would be an understatement. He leads the county in scoring (25.8 points per game), ranks seventh in rebounds (10.6) and averages three blocked shots. He has taken 130 more shots (518) than the next highest leader, making 55%. The percentage is particularly astounding because he likes to shoot from the perimeter, too, where he has made about 30% of his three-point shots.

Even more astounding, in the face of criticism that he gets the ball too much, Burgess says he’d like to get the ball even more.

“I’m not perfect, but I feel that if I’m right near the basket I can make most of my shots,” he said.

Apparently college coaches think so, too. UCLA Coach Jim Harrick attended a Woodbridge game. Roy Williams of Kansas and Lute Olson of Arizona sat stoically along a baseline at the Bren Center last December when Woodbridge lost to No. 2 Tustin, a game in which Burgess wasn’t on his game and Tiller David Lalazarian was. Assistants from North Carolina and Duke have been in town the past couple of weeks, as have scouts for Kentucky. Utah Coach Rick Majerus visited the school last week.

College coaches are not permitted to comment on high school recruits until after they have signed letters of intent. But Woodbridge Coach John Halagan isn’t bashful when asked to describe Burgess.

“Chris is the most versatile player in the county, quite possibly the best player this county has seen,” he said. “The kid is a legitimate 6-10; he’ll probably get a bit larger. He has the heart of a lion and he attacks the rim.”

Burgess leads the Warriors (21-6) into the opening round of the Southern Section Division II-AA boys’ basketball playoffs at 7:30 p.m. Friday against visiting Sunny Hills (10-16).

Burgess, who works with a personal trainer to increase mobility, said he has been told he reminds some of a young Tom Chambers, a former NBA standout. Cherokee Parks of the Dallas Mavericks, a star at Marina High and Duke, is another name mentioned.

Many say he resembles former Woodbridge star Adam Keefe, now with the Utah Jazz. Some old-timers, noting that UCLA would love to sign him, have said he has the same shooting ability and similar physique (right down to sore knees) as Bill Walton. Burgess takes medication twice daily to control tendinitis in his knees.

“He’s more of an athlete than Adam Keefe was,” Corona del Mar Coach Paul Orris said. “At the same time Keefe, and this is not to be a negative, had a lot more character on the floor. He was a gentleman. There were no demonstrations, no pointing the finger at someone. Keefe would just knock you down and beat you and then help you up, where Burgess has a lot more talent than Keefe.”

Off the court, Burgess doesn’t come across as a cocky, finger-in-your-face kind of player. Is he affected by all the attention? A bit. What teenager wouldn’t be? Burgess claims he is just a hard worker who appreciates the scrutiny.

“It just makes me want to play harder,” he said.

Friends and teammates say Burgess is a gentle giant.

“He’s a great person,” said Brandon Beeson, a 6-5 Woodbridge forward who has played in Burgess’ shadow all season. “With all the publicity he gets, you’d think he would be cocky, but he isn’t. When he’s with us on campus or somewhere else, you wouldn’t know that he is Chris Burgess.”

Burgess, who lives not far from the Woodbridge campus, enrolled at Mater Dei in the fall of 1993 so he could play basketball with several teammates from his summer traveling team. It was a difficult call not to stay home and attend Woodbridge, where his 6-foot-4 sister, Angela, was a star for the Warriors.

The decision to attend a high school just to play basketball turned out to be a mistake.

“He missed his friends at home,” Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said. “I don’t think he ever felt comfortable here.”

Burgess said he understood from McKnight that he would get 10-15 minutes of playing time as a freshman, and that by the time he was a sophomore the team’s offense would revolve more and more around him.

But six games into the 1993-94 season, Schea Cotton, also a freshman, transferred to Mater Dei from Bellflower St. John Bosco. That didn’t sit too well with Burgess, whose playing time diminished.

It was also a problem for McKnight. When Burgess was in, he wanted the ball. Cotton was almost always in and he wanted the ball. So Burgess languished on the bench.

When the season ended, Burgess told his parents he wanted to transfer to Woodbridge.

“Of all the kids I have lost, losing Burgess was the toughest,” McKnight said. “He’s a great kid. I’m sure that Schea showing up didn’t help the situation.

“Chris is making his own way now,” McKnight said. “If he had remained with us, I think we could have made him a better player, not that he needs to be much better than he is now. He’s just a very good athlete.”

Burgess said he left Mater Dei as much for his lack of playing time as his feelings of insecurity.

“Being at Mater Dei really got me ready for what I am now as a basketball player,” he said. “But I didn’t like my role. If Schea wasn’t there, I might still be at Mater Dei.”

Halagan remembers seeing Burgess for the first time, standing from ceiling to floor in a school hallway.

“A franchise player,” Halagan thought to himself.

So, he built an offense that centers on Burgess, a plan that some critics have called one-dimensional. It was good enough, however, to get the Warriors (20-10) to the section II-AA semifinals last season.

“We have a lot of guys besides Chris Burgess who can hurt you,” Halagan said. “I know there is talk that if your offense flows through one guy too much, maybe that is a bad thing. But, hey, we wouldn’t have won a league title and won 21 games if it didn’t work.”

As for Burgess’ on-court exuberance, Halagan points out that people forget Burgess is still just a kid in a 6-foot-10 body. “I know how hard Chris works and he has the potential to be even better next year,” Halagan said. “He’s a good kid, very coachable, and he does what he is asked to do.”

A few parents have grumbled from time to time, Halagan admits, about how often Burgess touches the ball, but none of them denies his worth to the team.

“The guy can play,” said Woodbridge guard William Stovall, one of many teammates who often pass up shots to get the ball to Burgess. “He has a great inside shot and when we’re down by a couple of points, he gets a big rebound or steps out and makes a key steal. And he really pumps us up with those dunks.”

The offense works well when Burgess is on, as he was in his 38-point, 20-rebound performance in a double-overtime victory over Sea View League rival Santa Margarita a couple of weeks ago. But Burgess draws double teams on most nights and at times it has appeared his teammates have had difficulty picking up the slack, or are uncomfortable trying to do so.

Corona del Mar, using a triple team against Burgess, held him to one point in the fourth quarter, though he had 24 in the game. The Sea Kings won, 55-53, forcing the Warriors to share the league title with Santa Margarita.

“You have to have lots of grit and determination and you’ve got to have some help to stop him,” Orris said. “He’s difficult because he likes to come outside. So we tried to pressure the ball because if you let their guards penetrate, they’ll kill you.”

That encounter with second-ranked Tustin early in the season at the Bren Center still bothers Burgess. Tustin won, 58-55. Lalazarian scored 28 points; Burgess had 21, but was only 10 of 24 from the field, and only one of eight from the three-point line.

“I was just off that night,” Burgess said. “I didn’t have my shot.”

Burgess, Stovall and Beeson are only juniors. Jared Dannis, a 6-6 center who comes off the bench to provide a powerful double low post, is also a junior.

“I think early in the year kids were passing to Chris and passing up some of their shots,” Halagan said. “But lately I don’t think that’s the case.”

Burgess called the loss to Corona del Mar a wake-up call.

“We basically blew our chance for the league title,” he said. “We need to pick it up from here.”

Woodbridge enters the playoffs as the Sea View’s No. 2-seeded team behind Santa Margarita, which won a coin flip for the top spot.

If Burgess has a weakness, it is his search for perfection and his fear that he will never find it. He spends hours perfecting his game, but doesn’t think that’s enough. Last summer he spent a week at a camp for big men at the University of Utah.

“I thought I was a pretty good basketball player,” he said. “Then on the last day of the camp [Utah’s] Keith Van Horn shows up and plays against me and absolutely destroys me. I realized I had a long way to go.”

So on those nights when Woodbridge isn’t playing, Burgess finds a place to shoot hoops. It’s often alone, but sometimes he heads to the gym at Long Beach City College, where he practices with acquaintances he met through summer leagues.

Sometimes he returns to the outdoor courts at Woodbridge, where the bent rim serves as a reminder of what he has accomplished--and what is still to come.

BOYS’ PLAYOFF CAPSULES: V4