SILVER LINING

Running late for a photo shoot on the Strip, Isaac Burton held his girlfriend Katy’s hand as they fought their way through the crush of people inside the Stardust Hotel and Casino.

A sickening sense of deja vu hit Burton deep in his gut when the crowd thinned a bit and he saw he had to go through the casino’s sports book to exit the building. The smoke-filled room exuded a sense of revelry, eager gamblers gleefully clutching their teaser cards and parlay picks as they awaited the kickoff in the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers.

The Dionysian scene--”Monday Night Football” at a Sin City sports book--amused Katy, a native of Greece who had never seen the like. She wistfully asked Burton about all the television monitors showing different sports and games and wondered aloud what the numbers--point spreads, over-unders, props--posted on the walls meant.

“It just hit me right then and there,” Burton said. “I didn’t want to get into it and have to explain everything to her so I told her I’d tell her later. I was just like, ‘Man, why’d I do it?’ I was depressed for a minute.”

It’s a feeling that comes flooding back whenever Burton ventures out in his new hometown. Whether it’s the mechanical whir and whistles of slot machines or the perverse ambience of a sports book on game day, Burton is constantly surrounded by reminders of his association with gambling and gamblers.

Burton, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles near Manchester and Western, was a two-sport star at Washington High and East Los Angeles College. He also was involved in the highly publicized college basketball point-shaving scandal at Arizona State.

Now Burton, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sports bribery for his role, is trying to set things straight and find redemption in the nation’s gambling capital, of all places, playing for the Las Vegas Silver Bandits of the fledgling International Basketball League.

“A lot of people make it out that I’m a point shaver and I’m all this, but people don’t realize I never actually point-shaved,” Burton said. “But I accepted the money. It is ironic that I am in Las Vegas now. But on the other hand, I’ve got a job and I’m playing basketball, so I’m happy with that.”

His court performances reflect that.

The 6-foot-4, 198-pound point guard is fifth in the league in scoring, averaging 18.8 points, and leads in assists, averaging 6.8. He’s also averaging 4.0 rebounds and 3.7 steals in 42.2 minutes.

He has really turned it on in his last four games, averaging 25.5 points, 7.3 assists and 4.3 steals. The run of success began with a 28-point, seven-assist, seven-steal effort in the Silver Bandits’ 113-99 loss to the Trenton (N.J.) Shooting Stars on Dec. 13 and concluded with a 24-point, 13-assist, three-steal outing in 53 minutes Saturday in Las Vegas’ 127-121 double-overtime victory over the San Diego Stingrays.

Burton may be excelling, but he’s doing it in a league of no-names, has-beens and, to some extent, never-will-be’s that has a millionaire rapper with a broken jump shot--San Diego’s Percy Miller, a.k.a. Master P--as its biggest draw.

Still, the IBL’s mission is not to compete with the NBA, but rather, to serve as a home for players without NBA skills and those who are developing them.

Burton, 26, a converted point guard with flair, a decent crossover dribble and the ability to penetrate and score or dish off, or even stop and pop from the top of the key, fills that bill, according to George Blaney, the former Seton Hall coach who is IBL vice president of basketball operations. Another is former UCLA forward J.R. Henderson, a Silver Bandit teammate who is second in the league in scoring, averaging 24.2 points after a 46-point outburst Saturday at San Diego.

“He’s an exceptional player who plays with great enthusiasm and energy and gives you the kind of effort that’s really kind of a throwback,” Blaney said of the headband-wearing, high-socks-sporting Burton. “He plays hard every minute. He’s somebody that is worth looking at over the course of time. He’ll have to make it as a point guard and he’s working on that right now. He should be looked at, sure.”

NBA scouting director Marty Blake said he hadn’t seen Burton play since his senior year at ASU but remembered him as a decent player and said he shouldn’t be blackballed by the NBA.

“I would like to see the kid do well,” Blake said. “We all make mistakes, but if he plays well [in the IBL] he’ll get the opportunity.”

IBL contracts discourage players from jumping ship midseason to the NBA.

But even if he has the physical skills, does he deserve a shot? He was, after all, involved in what was termed by FBI officials as the most significant sports bribery conspiracy involving college athletes in history.

Silver Bandit Coach Rolland Todd thinks so.

“Our cultural philosophy, supposedly, is that if you do the crime and you pay your dues, then you should be able to go on about your life,” said Todd, who was the first coach in Portland Trail Blazer history in 1970. “It was a dumb mistake that he made, but he’s going to fulfill what the courts have said. And I think he should be free to pursue whatever he wants to pursue. Otherwise, it’s double jeopardy.”

Was there any apprehension on the part of the Silver Bandits or the IBL league office in offering Burton a contract?

“None whatsoever,” Todd said. “I see a good guy who screwed up, whose intentions are not to go down that path again.”

It was during Burton’s junior season at ASU, the 1993-94 campaign, that he was approached by teammate Stevin “Hedake” Smith with a plan for quick and easy money.

Smith already was involved in the point-shaving scheme with student-bookie Benny Silman as a way to get out from under his own gambling debt and suggested to Burton, 21 at the time, that if he wanted some cash, all he had to do was miss a few free throws if called on.

Burton didn’t think twice about it and took the $4,300. He says he was never called on to miss shots, which would have played with a point spread.

“I just saw it as free money,” said Burton, who made 100 of 119 free throws that season. “Even if I was never called on [to miss shots], I could keep the money. It was never explained to me what point-shaving was. I never really had that much money before.

“My parents, they gave me everything, but they would never just give me, like, $300 for nothing. We didn’t have it like that. And me being out on my own, those are dumb mistakes you make when you’re on your own. It was a part of my growing up from a boy to a man.

“And it was one of them decisions that my parents weren’t there to help me make. It was just a decision that I had to make. And it was the wrong one on my part.”

Burton, the youngest of 10 children and the father of three, says that although he was a naive kid from the ghetto at the time, he doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him, that he was duped into the scheme. But he doesn’t want to be vilified forever, either.

“Listen, that’s going to happen everywhere I go until I die,” said Burton, the son of a preacher man. “I get it in this league to this day. They heckle me everywhere. It doesn’t bother me. I’m out there playing basketball, which is something I love to do. And I get paid lots of money for it. Why would I even listen to people calling me a point shaver and heckling me when I’m out there doing something I love to do? Most people have jobs that they don’t even want to be at and here I am on the court, entertaining the people that paid to get in.”

Last summer, however, he was in court, being sentenced for his role.

He was facing up to a year of prison time but U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Broomfield gave Burton two months in jail, six months’ home detention, 200 hours of community service, three years’ probation and an $8,000 fine.

“All for $4,300,” Burton said as he shook his head. “People ask me if I’m mad at Hedake. I’m not mad at Hedake. I [agreed to] the deal. If he had said, ‘Isaac, let’s go jump off this bridge,’ I would have said no. He left it up to me. I could say, ‘Look, man, let’s go shoot somebody.’ It’s up to you to say no. That’s what it was. I should have said no. He left me a decision and I made the wrong one. It’s my fault for that.”

Burton can serve his time at his leisure, basically. If he has free time, Burton can spend a night in jail and credit it toward his sentence.

As a senior, Burton led the surprising Sun Devils to the Sweet 16 of the 1995 NCAA tournament. And though he participated in the pre-NBA draft Desert Classic camp, Burton had no delusions of being picked.

Instead, he played rookie league baseball that summer with the Seattle Mariners’ affiliate. Burton had been, after all, drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in junior college.

But he soured on the desert heat and curveballs and refocused on basketball.

Burton participated in the Phoenix Suns’ rookie camp that year and began his Homeric hoops odyssey.

He played in the International Basketball Assn. with the Black Hills Posse in Rapid City, S.D., before spending two years in Australia with the Sydney Kings. Burton next played with the Golden State Warriors during the 1997-98 exhibition season and struck up a friendship with Latrell Sprewell, before Sprewell sized up Coach P.J. Carlesimo’s collar size, but was cut before the regular season.

The Continental Basketball Assn.’s Quad City Thunder in Rock Island, Ill., was next, but Burton left when the ASU point-shaving revelations began to surface. He went back Down Under and played a year with the Newcastle Falcons before heading to Cyprus, where he met Katy.

After the June sentencing, Burton’s phone was mockingly silent. Usually he had more than a few contract offers to choose from, but his admission and the ensuing bad press chased off possible suitors.

“I thought it was all over,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to get a real job.”

Then one day as he was playing pick-up ball in a park, a mutual friend of Burton and Silver Bandit assistant coach Mark Wade was impressed with Burton’s skills and told him of the IBL and, specifically, the franchise in Las Vegas.

Burton attended the free-agent camp and emerged from training camp as the Silver Bandits’ starting point guard.

He keeps hope alive that he will get another shot at the NBA, though his world won’t end if it doesn’t happen. Besides, he’s making more money playing basketball now than he ever did before--IBL salaries range from $30,000 to $100,000 a season--though he won’t say how much he’s earning, and he has a team to run.

Las Vegas struggled out of the gate, and takes only a 3-8 record into tonight’s home game against the St. Louis Swarm. But the Silver Bandits have played only one home game so far, and will have played 20 of their first 25 on the road.

That’s just fine with Burton, who won’t have to go near casinos or their sports books on the road of the eight-team IBL.

“I don’t even gamble because I hate to lose so much,” Burton said, the irony not lost on him. “I’ve got a second chance. I’m on a tightrope and I can’t fall off.”