Grantland Article about Jared Sullinger and Trey Burke

[timobusa]

It's a great read.

http://grantland.com/features/trey-burke-jared-sullinger-friends/

Jared Sullinger became a favorite pupil of Kevin Garnett during his rookie season in Boston. Burke returned for what would be a transformative sophomore season at Michigan. The Wolverines had once been an elite program in college basketball. The Fab Five recruiting class of 1991 represented a cultural phenomenon. But in the years since, the Wolverines had been hit hard by sanctions and upheaval. Burke helped reenergize Ann Arbor. The team sprinted to its best start in school history during Burke’s sophomore season. He earned national player of the year honors and guided Michigan to the title game.

Sullinger, for one night at least, became a Wolverines fan.

“I support my brother,” Jared Sullinger said. “And my brother was here before Ohio State offered me a scholarship, so regardless, I was also a supporter for that national championship game.”

The Wolverines lost to Louisville. Burke played only six minutes in the first half with foul trouble, but he returned with a fury and finished with 24 points. The game changed in a crucial moment when it appeared Burke cleanly blocked Peyton Siva’s attempt at the basket with 5:09 remaining. Burke was called for a foul and Siva hit both free throws to initiate a 7-2 run from which Michigan never recovered.

“That was clean as a whistle,” Benji Burke said.

One day while they were still in middle school, Jared and Trey waited at the Sullingers’ before a Northland game. Jared had been ironing his clothes, but was interrupted by an impromptu game of catch.

“He ain’t catch it and the ball went through the window — broke it and everything,” Burke said. “So we’re over there trying to figure out how we’re going to explain it. Jared took the blame for everything. He told his mom that he was ironing his clothes and he tripped over the cord. Just so I wouldn’t get in trouble for it.”

“Yeah, I copped to breaking the window for him,” Sullinger said. “It’s all good, though. We did a lot of stuff our parents will never know about. That’s what brothers do for each other. I took his back on a lot of things that I won’t tell Ronda or Benji, and he took a lot of things for me that he won’t tell Barbara or Satch, so those are the things we’re going to take to the grave.”

Barbara Sullinger said she’s resigned to never knowing what really happened to her window. “You know what?” she said. “It’s only recently that they kind of, sort of hinted that it had more to do with a ball than an ironing board.”

Sullinger exceeded expectations during his rookie season before undergoing season-ending lumbar disk surgery on his back in February. He returned this season to a rebuilding Celtics team without Garnett and Paul Pierce, and for the first time in his life had to come to grips with frequent losses. He takes offense when he hears that the organization is tanking. In one memorable moment this season, he scored 17 fourth-quarter points while trying to wrest a win away from Memphis. The effort, like many of Boston’s games this season, fell short. However, last week Sullinger earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors after averaging 20.3 points and 12.7 rebounds.

The odds of a male high school basketball player making it to the professional ranks are about 3 in 10,000. For two nearly lifelong friends to both make it? The odds are practically impossible. Still, they overcame obstacles. One was too big, the other too small. One had a bad back. The other a crooked shot. Yet here they are, the fat kid and the pip-squeak playing basketball with a bucket in a basement. They’ll face one another for the first time in the NBA later this month when Utah hosts Boston.1 But they will again be teammates this weekend in the league’s Rising Stars Challenge, the all-star game showcasing the league’s best freshmen and sophomores.

“We’ve talked about how this is what dreams are made of,” Jared Sullinger said. “We wanted to make it to the NBA, and we’ve been talking about it ever since we were little boys.”

When Burke was selected in last year’s draft, Sullinger congratulated him. “You did it,” he said. Burke stopped him before he could say anything else. “Nah, I didn’t do it,” he said. “We did it.”

[RebusRankin]

Excellent piece.

[D.o.s.]

Good find - Abrams always does great features.