Orange Coast’s Burwell Won’t Pass Up This Desperation Shot

Nick Burwell can sink a jump shot, from anywhere on this court. He can dunk, with style, or pass up a dunk by passing the ball behind his back.

He is the best player on this court, and the tallest. But this is a pickup game at a fitness center in Costa Mesa, and he is a 6-foot-3 shooting guard dominating a game in which the second-best player is a woman one foot shorter and the third-best player wears a tank top with the number 360 on his back.

The NBA does not search for talent here, amid the after-work crowd of men and women lifting weights, riding stationary bicycles, alternately sweating and flirting. If there is a budding NBA star among them--and Burwell believes he is that man--the pros are oblivious to him.

Burwell, 22, played college ball last season, not at UCLA or Arizona but at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, a junior college. He was on the NBA’s official list Friday of underclassmen who have declared for next month’s draft, and he believes he would be a probable lottery pick if he had played on ESPN.

“The only reason I probably won’t go in the top 10 is because I went to Orange Coast,” he said. “If I went to UCLA or USC, for sure I’d be in the top 10 with ease.

“I had no exposure. I put up numbers almost every night. No one came to see me play.”

That includes his advisor, Eddie Clark of Baton Rouge, La., not certified as an agent by the NBA Players Assn. Clark, who has seen Burwell play only on videotape and has yet to meet him, promised Burwell he could be drafted late in the first round, or early in the second.

“Ever since I was little, I wanted to play pro ball,” Burwell said. “I always thought it would be a dream. I never thought it would be reality.”

It may not be. These numbers are not in Burwell’s favor: The NBA draft stops after two rounds and 57 selections. Besides the pool of college seniors, the NBA received 75 early draft declarations, most from underclassmen who distinguished themselves at brand-name schools such as Arizona, Michigan State and North Carolina.

Burwell averaged 22.8 points a game at Orange Coast, scoring 45 in one game. For a shooting guard, his percentages--41% on field goals, 31% on three-pointers--were not remarkable. He made the all-conference team, but conference coaches selected two others as co-most valuable players.

“He’s a scorer, no question about it,” Orange Coast Coach Mark Hill said. “What are his problems going to be at the next level? He’s only 6-2, and he’s not a point guard.”

Burwell, who says he stands 6-4, says he can succeed as a shooting guard in part because “this year’s draft is low in shooting guards.”

Over the telephone, you can hear Marty Blake sigh. Blake, director of scouting for the NBA, responds to the mention of Burwell’s name by reciting from memory his height--6-3, Blake says--and scoring average.

So the NBA is aware of Burwell. Nonetheless, Blake scoffs at any notion that the NBA is suffering from a shortage of shooting guards.

“We’ve got 89 million shooting guards,” Blake said. “I feel sorry for the kid. Please advise him to go back to school.”

It’s not that easy. For too many years, Burwell lived for basketball, literally enough that he cannot attract a Division I scholarship offer now that he could use one.

The Division I schools came calling in 1997, when he starred at Inglewood High, but Burwell said poor grades prevented him from getting a scholarship. He played eight games at West Los Angeles College in the 1997-98 season, then moved to Orange County with his family and dribbled into and out of two other community colleges before playing for either.

He played all the time, though, anywhere and everywhere he could, sometimes driving more than an hour for pickup games at UCLA or Venice Beach.

“Every single day, from 10 or 11 in the morning till 9 or 10 at night, out hooping,” Burwell said.

“I knew I needed to work on my game. I knew some school would take me. I had talent.”

No school would take him on talent alone. At Orange Coast, his fourth community college in four years, it finally clicked: “I love ball. School is a part of ball,” he said.

Burwell recovered his eligibility by tending to academic matters during the 1999-2000 season, then joined the Orange Coast team last season. But no Division I schools recruited him, in part because of his spotty academic record and in part because he could play for only one season.

NCAA rules allow a Division I athlete five years to use four seasons of eligibility. The clock starts when an athlete first plays for a college team at any level, as Burwell did at West L.A. four years ago, and cannot be suspended simply because an athlete drops out.

“Division I opportunities passed him by,” Hill said. “He could have been a Division I player, but they don’t want anybody for one year.”

The NBA recently presented an opportunity to Burwell. The league invited him to apply to play in the National Basketball Development League, a minor league the NBA is starting later this year. That can wait, Burwell said, until after the draft.

His story could have a happy ending, even if Burwell never plays a day in the NBA. He called a reporter twice--and paged him once--solely to make sure his girlfriend, Bonnie, would be mentioned in this article.

She succeeded where so many others had failed over so many years, convincing him that education is not something to be avoided, or tolerated as the price one pays to play ball. He studied graphic arts at Orange Coast, he said, and he loved it.

“Even if I do get picked up in the draft, eventually I’ll go back to school,” he said.

“I do want to go back and get my degree. That’s a real good goal for me.”