Irish player in NBA

limerick_man

I couldnt believe when i heard it! This is his second time round, but i never knew he was there b4!
His names Burke from Dublin.. but he's 31????

If he's really that good, y is the irish national team, getting no where? or is he on it?

zAbbo

Pat Burke, seen him play for some spanish team a while back.

http://www.hoopshype.com/players/pat_burke.htm

The lack of big men in the NBA, has teams scouring Europe for players.

Apparently a member of the Irish national team

hardwoodhero

Pat Burke is a top class big man. Pat was born in Tullamore in Offally and left ireland to live in the US with his parents when he was 3. He attended college in the US and then began a career in Europe , he played for the biggest teams in Europe Panathanikos, Real Madrid ect. he was rated as one of the best big men in Europe. He played with orlando for a season in 2003 average about 5ppg and 4rpg. He returned to Europe for two years and returned to the suns this year. Hes very strong and powerfull inside and has a nice shooting touch.

Pat played in the world uni games for ireland in 1995 but only started playing with the senior mens team latly as prior to that is wasnt organised properly. Ireland hjave a good senior mens team now. Recently we only lost to Croatia by 3. We are now able to compete with the top nations in europe. We are qualifying for the european championships at the mo. If we beat slovakia at home by more than 6 and beat swisterland away we will qualify for the finals for the first time ever. Some of the Irish team are:

PAt Burke - phoenix suns nba
Marty Conlon - former nba player
Cal Bowdler - former nab player
Jay Larranga - real madrid
Conor Grace - palying in the italian top league
Michael bree - playing in the german top league
dan callaghan - playing in the italian top league

the full team is:

4 Michael BREE
5 Lorcan PRECIOUS
6 Pat BURKE
7 Chris BRACEY
8 Marty CONLON
9 Jay LARRANAGA
10 Conor GRACE
11 Cal BOWDLER
12 Jim MORAN
13 Danny MILLS
14 Dan CALLAHAN
15 Justen NAUGHTON

Head Coach Gerry FITZPATRICK
Assistant Coach Roger KELLEHER
Assistant Coach Joe BOYLAN
Manager Sean O'REILLY
Athletic Trainer Randy DILLON

limerick_man

My dear god... arnt you a burst of information???

hardwoodhero

ha ha i know my ****.

Draupnir

Haha, Joey Boylan, a legend!

phil

It's brilliant Burke has gone to a team like the Suns, who play exciting fast break basketball. Obviously he has gone in to bulk up the squad a bit, so Phoenix can play a bit bigger inside, but he'll still need to be able to run the court.

I'm really looking forward to see how Burke does and plays with them. International matches are starting up again as well pretty soon. Might provoke a bit more interest in them!

Phil.

hardwoodhero

hopefully so ireland have a really good team at the moment, i found out Jamal Crawford is eligable to play for Ireland along with another NBA player unnamed as of yet.

It would be good to get big crowds to get behind the team and hopefully we win our games and qualify.

#15

Crawford!! That is cool, where did ya hear that HWH? And how is he eligible?

phil

If we had the players of the calibre (and reputation) of Jamal Crawford playing for our national team, I'd imagine you'd see the crowds coming fairly quickly.

I'm very curious to know how he's eligible, is it the grand-grandfathers-long-lost-cousins-wifes-friend-of-a-neighbour rule?

Phil.

zAbbo

I doubt JC would play for Ireland, most of the NBA don't even want to play for the USA

hardwoodhero

phil wrote:

If we had the players of the calibre (and reputation) of Jamal Crawford playing for our national team, I'd imagine you'd see the crowds coming fairly quickly.

I'm very curious to know how he's eligible, is it the grand-grandfathers-long-lost-cousins-wifes-friend-of-a-neighbour rule?

Phil.

Im not sure how it is hes eligable but id assume its through grandparents, as far as i know he experessed an interets in playing. Jason Williams that graduated from Duke ( not white Jason williams for Memphis) is eligable too ,or so the rumor goes.

old boy

pat bourke has in the past refused to for ireland,he usually has the no.13 spot in the n.b.a.which pays damm good,the travel that they do prevents any other game for them, for instance the bulls may play in los angeles tonite,then 2 nites later have to go to the jazz

old boy

hi limkerick man have you seen any of the lions pre season games,most of last seasons squad are gone,they seem to be playing a different type of game this season

limerick_man

Yeah, that deffinatly worries me! They seem to just be playing the under 17 squad!!!
Be intresting to see if they can go anywhere with what they have... its a shame all the well known faces are going because I thought this year would really be the year it would take off in our city!
The faces were known (even people who didnt support the team would have heard of Hall), the team was improving (Farrell and Jefferies where great last season)... and I think King may have enough experience to now be a really good player!
Cant see who the new captain will be?!?!

old boy

dunno,hall is gone back to collage,farrell is finishing off his time to be a cabinet maker,jeffers is gone to spain,i think the problem is money,thoes guys do charge for their time,no sponser no cash,last year the committee took out a loan, payed it back from their own pockets,i am led to believe it took 30,000 to cover last season, any one out there with any spare cash,or know of anyone

limerick_man wrote:

Yeah, that deffinatly worries me! They seem to just be playing the under 17 squad!!!
Be intresting to see if they can go anywhere with what they have... its a shame all the well known faces are going because I thought this year would really be the year it would take off in our city!
The faces were known (even people who didnt support the team would have heard of Hall), the team was improving (Farrell and Jefferies where great last season)... and I think King may have enough experience to now be a really good player!
Cant see who the new captain will be?!?!

YellowEllo

People, people... i know Sir Pat of Burke

He is a cousin of a good friend of mine.Sound dude and he is some giant.Im gonna see him when he comes over play the September Internationals.

Also its good to see Lorcan Precious on the Irish Squad after playing for UCD.That dude is a tricky customer..Im liking the looks of the squad at the mo

limerick_man

Hmm.. lets hope they can do something speical!!

Kinetic^

Its great to see somebody irish playing in the NBA......

But can we really say he's Irish?? He lived here for the first 3 years of his life and then moved to the states.

We shouldn't be that excited about it as he didn't actually come up through the irish basketball system.

Until somebody does, IMO, we don't have an irish player in the NBA.

limerick_man

I think it would be great if they got selected direct from a superleague team after spending their life in Irish Basketball!
But thats not gonna happen!

Now, Irish ppl trying to make it big, have two hopeful options...

1.) From Superleague, get a scolarship with a US college and get selected from there!
2.) From Irish B-ball get into any big EU team, from there hope that scouts come over the sea (really convient if you happened to be on the national team!)

phil

Anyone with aspirations of playing in the NBA would have to leave this country by the time they were 15/16, unless they were a very coachable raw talent.

Even England doesn't have the coaches, resources or competitiveness at underage level to develop proper talent.

WetDaddy

This ain't so much off-topic as "reverse-topic", but didn't Mario Elie play for Killester many moons ago?

Really showing my age here...

hardwoodhero

Yeah Mario Ellie played here. He played for Killester in 1987. Mario Ellie went throught the US college system and failed to get drafted so he ended up in Europe and went from there to the NBA.

The only way an Irish player can make the NBA is leaving Ireland after school and attending prep school / college. Michael Bree, Conor Grace and Paul Cummings arnt too far off that level.

Kinetic^

hardwoodhero wrote:

Yeah Mario Ellie played here. He played for Killester in 1987. Mario Ellie went throught the US college system and failed to get drafted so he ended up in Europe and went from there to the NBA.

The only way an Irish player can make the NBA is leaving Ireland after school and attending prep school / college. Michael Bree, Conor Grace and Paul Cummings arnt too far off that level.

Both conor and michael are going to europe this season and Paul has like 3 years left in college. so he's our next hope. And Bowe, Its Cummins not cummings.

hardwoodhero

ha ha ieve been spelling that incorrectly all along.

blueandgold

Anyone able to tell me current squad - the Irish basketball site won't let me view - page freezes

phil

There's nothing been announced yet. The players have been told, but I've not seen it announced anywhere

ec18

Paul Cummins name is familiar....anyone know where he's from?

Kinetic^

ec18 wrote:

Paul Cummins name is familiar....anyone know where he's from?

Newbridge, Co. Kildare. Well that's where he went to school. He's from a small town in Kildare, not going to get into specifics.