LAS VEGAS — Alec Burks doesn’t just dream of the moment he will slowly walk across the stage and shake hands with NBA commissioner David Stern.
He intends on living it that way.
“I’m going to try to walk as slow as possible,” Burks said.
The former Colorado star broke into a smile and said, “I can’t wait for that day.”
That day is June 23, the NBA draft. It will be a simultaneous end and beginning for a player who just three years ago had big dreams but little else to indicate he might have a shot at pro ball.
Now he’s thinking about suits, as in what to wear on stage when his name is announced and he shakes hands with Stern in New York. As much as he can, anyway, in the midst of intense predraft workouts for NBA teams and training sessions at Impact Basketball. True to his personality — more Jack Johnson than Ice Cube — there will be no flash in the fabric.
“It’s going to be dark,” Burks said. “Dark color, probably black. Dark shoes, belt, a watch. All of that. I ain’t never been that type of dude to try to make a statement. I’m laid back. So I’m going to be laid back at the draft.”
Burks, a 6-foot-6, 193-pound guard who made the all-Big 12 team as a CU sophomore, is expected to have his name called in the lottery — one of the top-13 picks in the draft. He would be one of only five players in CU history to be drafted that high.
“I’m glad for that to happen,” Burks said. “It shows that I worked hard.”
Polishing the presentation
Impact Basketball is just beyond the reach of the Las Vegas strip. Run by one of the nation’s top basketball trainers, Joe Abunassar, it’s a basketball lover’s paradise. Pro and college athletes train there during the summer. On this day, it’s a who’s who of college stars from last season. Burks is joined by Kawhi Leonard (San Diego State), Kalin Lucas (Michigan State) and Jacob Pullen (Kansas State).
Burks is wearing a white T-shirt, Jordan-brand black shorts with red accents, black socks and black shoes. He’s among a trio being put through shooting and conditioning drills on a hot morning that makes for a sweltering gym.
“Same drill, same drill! Shot fake, into shot,” a coach with closely cropped, fiery red hair implores. “Now jab step and shoot.”
No detail is missed. The coach corrects Burks’ form on a jab-step, jump-shot drill.
“Hard jab, hard jab, hard jab,” he says, his voice stern. “Work both feet.”
On days when Burks is not flying across the country to work out for NBA teams, he’s usually at Impact Basketball’s workout facility. He arrives midmorning and stays until late afternoon. He eats lunch and dinner at the facility. Custom meals for the athletes are delivered every day. He lifts weights. If he needs extra shooting, he comes back at night and takes more shots.
“So it’s like a full job,” Abunassar said.
The purpose, Abunassar explained, is improving drill work and refining a player’s skills to create a better presentation for NBA teams.
“Alec, as Colorado fans know, is a player,” Abunassar said. “When the lights come on, when the five-on-five (play) goes, he does so many things. He can pass, he can score, he can shoot. He’s hard to guard.
“What Alec needed to do in this process is get better at the drill stuff because that’s what they are watching him do in the workouts. Most teams watch film; they have Alec heavily scouted. We just want to make sure when he goes into the workouts he’s showing the explosiveness, the things that he showed in the game.”
Burks admits that he got off to a rocky start working out for NBA teams. He wasn’t pleased with how he did at his first workout, for the Washington Wizards. Since then he’s been more satisfied, he said. He has worked out for four other teams — the Detroit Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Charlotte Bobcats.
“I feel like I improved in each one,” Burks said. “Got better in each one.”
Almost picked Indiana
A series of good decisions led Burks to this point.
Ignored by the traditional national powers when he was playing for Grandview (Mo.) High School, those choices helped Burks rise to the top echelon of college basketball in a hurry. He came to Colorado after Jeff Bzdelik, the CU coach at the time, fell in love with his skills while watching him in a summer workout following his junior season when virtually no one else knew who he was.
Some high-profile programs tried to swoop in and get Burks late in his senior year, when his talent and potential became apparent to all.
When he arrived at CU, Bzdelik gushed. “It’s both on him and me to realize his potential,” Bzdelik said in Burks’ freshman season. “And if he works hard and stays healthy and his head and heart are in the right place, he has a chance to be really special.”
Burks’s second wise decision was staying at Colorado after his freshman season when Bzdelik left to be Wake Forest’s coach. Burks nearly transferred to Indiana, where former Buffaloes assistant Steve McClain landed after not getting the CU head coaching job when Bzdelik bolted from Boulder.
“People don’t understand. I was really going to Indiana to follow McClain. I really was going,” Burks said. “Coach (Tad) Boyle talked to me and I made the right decision, I feel, to stay.”
Burks averaged 20.5 points and 6.5 rebounds in a stellar sophomore season playing for Boyle, who replaced Bzdelik as CU’s head coach.
Right decision No. 3, he said, is turning pro at this time. Burks went back and forth trying to decide whether to stay for his junior season or leave the Buffs for the NBA draft. He made up his mind the night before he announced his decision at a news conference. In the end, it was a business decision.
“I felt like some players that were behind me and in front of me, they stayed in school,” Burks said. “I’m the top-ranked shooting guard prospect in the nation, everybody saying I’m a top-10 pick, so I couldn’t pass that up.
“I felt like I made a great decision. I like Colorado a lot, but you can’t pass up these types of situations, especially my situation.”
Burks insists he will remember his time at CU as “the best two years of my life,” but now he’s ready for the next challenge. To succeed, he has to convince teams beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is capable of playing at the NBA level. His 3-point range is perhaps the biggest concern about his game.
“He’s going to have to improve his ability to step out even further on the floor and knock down the NBA 3-pointer,” said Bucks director of scouting Billy McKinney.
But that’s not the only criticism some teams have.
“People think I’m too cool with the way I play,” Burks said. “I’m just a laid-back, smooth-type player. I might not look like I’m going hard, but I’m going as hard as I can. I’m going hard, but I’m smooth. So it looks like I’m not going hard at all.
“I can’t help it if I was just born like that. I can’t stop that. I’m not like that. I’m a smooth guy. I’m not going to be something I’m not.”
Burks is being challenged for the spot as the top-ranked shooting guard on the draft board. Providence’s Mar-shon Brooks and Washington State’s Klay Thompson are making strong pushes to be lottery picks next week. They have received rave reviews after recent workouts for teams.
“My biggest fear is failing, being out of the league sooner than I should be,” Burks said. “It’s motivation. There’s a lot of people out there with talent who are sitting on the corner.
“I want the longest career possible, all-star level, win some titles. Everybody dreams of that.”
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
Where will Burks go?
Early NBA draft projections had former Colorado star Alec Burks at the back end of the lottery. But the rise of Marshon Brooks and Klay Thompson has some draft prognosticators revising their predictions. A look at new projections of where Burks will go June 23:
ESPN’s Chad Ford: 13th to Phoenix
‘s Scott Howard-Cooper: Ninth to Charlotte
DraftExpress: 17th to New York
: 15th to Indiana
Chris Dempsey, The Denver Post
