This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Luther Burden, whom everyone called "Ticky," had a life that reads like a tall tale.
As a high school sensation, friends said, he had the key to the playground lights so he could shoot on his own until 2 a.m. He told people about playing Dr. J one-on-one in a Long Island gym. He put on shooting exhibitions, where legend had it he once made 571 free throws out of 600 attempts in a single night, well after he had retired from the ABA and NBA.
The stories may defy belief in some instances, but not for his friend Luke Williams. Not when he saw Ticky Burden's shooting stroke with his own eyes.
"He had a shooting motion that was kind of locked in," Williams said. "He was a technician. His shoulders, the way he squared himself to the basket."
The man with the beautiful shot, a 1975 All-American who is one of the all-time great scorers in Runnin' Utes history, died on Thursday at a hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C. He was 62.
Playing at Utah from 1972 to 1975, Burden's name is dotted throughout Utah's record book: No. 6 career scorer (1,790 points), the No. 4 in scoring average (22.4 ppg), No. 3 in field goals made (734). He also authored two of the top seven scoring seasons without the benefit of the 3-point line. His 1974-75 junior season, in which he averaged 28.7 points per game, is the second highest-scoring WAC season ever. He was inducted into the Crimson Club Hall of Fame in 2011.
Following his Utah days, he played for the New York Knicks for two seasons and the Virginia Squires of the ABA for one. His teammates included Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bob McAdoo and Phil Jackson.
Those who watched him play would argue that Burden was the Steph Curry of his time, a 6-foot-2 guard who could shoot like few could. His pro career was run aground by seven knee surgeries, but his shooting was always on point.
Willie Dobbs, a high school friend and Burden's agent, said he was shocked when he saw Burden play at Albany's Philip Schuleyer High, where he was as treasured as a celebrity by the mayor on down.
"It was so crazy, I could not taking my eyes off him," Dobbs said. "Nothing but net, nothing but net. I've never seen nobody shoot like that."
While a knee injury his senior year made many schools back off, Utah coach Bill Foster convinced him to come out and play at the Huntsman Center, at the time a state-of-the-art gym. Burden was a leading scorer on the 1974 NIT runner-up team.
He also was the top scorer on the 1974 USA men's national team that won a bronze medal at the FIBA World Championship. His record of 20.2 points per game was broken 36 years later by Kevin Durant — Burden liked to point out that unlike Durant, he came off the bench and played on a bum ankle.
The latter half of Burden's life was dominated by teaching kids basketball. For 28 years, he was a well-known figure in Winston-Salem, where he ran basketball camps in the YMCA and YWCA that helped produce such NBA stars as Chris Paul and Josh Howard. Williams recalled that Burden possessed great patience for beginners, mentoring some novices into college players.
His daughter, Grace Burden, said many former pupils and teammates reached out in person and through social media as they heard Ticky's health was failing. He battled through an immune disorder for the last few years, and he faded quickly in the last week after infections and other complications from a planned surgery.
"He touched a lot of lives through a lot of people" she said. "At least he's not in pain anymore."
Burden was convicted and imprisoned on armed robbery charges in 1982, serving two years before the conviction was overturned because police hadn't obtained search warrants. Burden rarely talked about the alleged crime or the time he served, Williams said, only mentioning that it was a lapse in his judgement of who he associated with.
Williams said he knew Burden as a man willing to offer a hand to anyone.
"He was always trying to help people," he said. "He got kids off the street. He was always coming to their rescue."
Twitter: @kylegoon