SALT LAKE CITY — The aplomb bomber is open. I mean, sure, there’s a tall human being trying to prevent this very notion, but this is just a minor nuisance in the mind of Kid Confidence. He’s possessed for possession — get him the ball, he’s open after all! — because scorers score, and this scorer can pour.
“I’ve always been confident in my abilities, but now I’m very, very confident,” explained Alec Burks, the former University of Colorado hoops star now starting for the Utah Jazz. “I’m a grown man — I came in the league when I was 19. I’m grown now. I’m more professional. I was just a kid living out a dream, learning how to grow up.”
Yeah, that’s the thing. For a couple of years there, Burks was just a guy. A lottery pick out of Colorado, the 6-foot-6 Jazz guard wasn’t star enough to be known for busting onto the scene — and wasn’t bad enough to be known as a bust. In his first two NBA seasons, he averaged right around a pedestrian 7.0 points per game. And according to a LexisNexis search, since draft week of 2011, 13 different newspapers at least once referenced him as “Alex Burks.”
But last season, his third, he became a sixth man — and he doubled his scoring average. Then came a new coach, the Kobe move, the move into the starting lineup and the new contract this fall.
Four years, $42 million.
“Life is good,” said Burks, who averages 14.8 points per game in 31.5 minutes, at the Jazz shootaround Wednesday before playing the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Oh, so what’s the Kobe move? In this preseason at the Los Angeles Lakers, Burks casually dribbled down the right wing with the legendary Kobe Bryant on defense. Suddenly, he unleashed this Allen Iverson-esque double-behind-the-back move that had Bryant looking like Bryant “Big Country” Reeves, a knee-knocked oaf defending on the perimeter. Burks quickly finished the play, attacking a trio of trees in the low post for an acrobatic layup.
“My phone wouldn’t stop ringing,” Burks said. “All because of one move. … It got bigger than the move (itself) was. Kobe is one of the best players ever.”
OK, so this Burks story is fun. But this guy isn’t, well, Kobe. His defense is suspect. He sometimes dribbles too much and not only is he adding points to his scoring average, but also his basketball IQ. But the 12th overall pick in the 2011 draft is blossoming at age 23, finally starting for a fun, young team. Utah is the third-youngest team in the NBA, a squad that would be even younger if it wasn’t for 31-year-old grandpa Steve Novak clogging up the roster. Is it possible the Jazz — with Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward, Dante Exum, Enes Kanter and Trey Burke — is in a better situation, long term, than division rival Denver? You’d have to think the Jazz’s ceiling is higher.
As for Burks’ ceiling, “It is unbelievably high,” he said. “I have that much confidence in my abilities. So if I keep working, I feel I can get there.”
You want some confidence? With LeBron James defending in the first quarter Wednesday, Burks calmly hoisted a long two-pointer — a low-percentage shot — and splashed the thing.
Maybe an All-Star Game someday?
“Yeah,” the aplomb bomber said of his career possibilities. “Limitless potential.”
How he ended up with the Buffs makes for a hoops fairy-tale filled with fate. As the story goes, then-CU coach Jeff Bzdelik went to recruit a summer camp in Kansas, where there were games in two gyms.
“One was air-conditioned,” Bzdelik later said of that 2008 day. “One was not. I went to the gym that was not air-conditioned, because there were only about two other coaches in there.”
Burks committed to Colorado, and even after he grew and blew up as a high school senior, he remained as such.
Now he’s one of the best CU players ever, trying, again, to make a name for himself.
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
