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Who Was Willie Burton? The NBA Career Behind His 53-Point Game

Who was Willie Burton and how did he score 53 points? His night against Miami began with a new role in Philadelphia and a career shaped by life off the court.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · February 24, 2018

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Chris Horwedel was at the Spectrum when Willie Burton scored 53 points against the Miami Heat. He was young enough to leave with a question: Why wasn’t this guy a star?

Burton was a former Minnesota standout and Miami draft pick playing for Philadelphia. On December 13, 1994, he hit 12 shots from the floor, including five threes. Then he made 24 of 28 free throws. The Sixers won 105–90, and Burton broke the Spectrum’s single-game scoring record.

Horwedel put that childhood question to Burton on Tales from the Association, in the episode “Tales from the Association: Willie Burton.” Burton’s answer took in basketball. It also went well beyond it.

Who was Willie Burton before the NBA?

Burton grew up in Detroit and played at St. Martin de Porres. He told Horwedel that college letters arrived by the garbage bag. His parents and coaches made sure he read them. Choosing a school, he said, meant choosing where he would spend four years and what might come after.

Minnesota won him over partly because of the Twin Cities. Burton saw that athletes could stay and find work there, then build a life. That appealed. He said he had expected to go to Michigan State; the NBA, at the time, was a possibility rather than his plan.

Horwedel admitted he had once pictured himself in the league, too. By 14, he said, he knew better. Burton had already been thinking about a degree.

At Minnesota, coach Clem Haskins gave Burton minutes as a freshman, though Burton thought he should start. Burton later came to see why Haskins held him back. Big Ten players were stronger than he was, and he spent the next summer in the weight room.

His college record grew fast. Burton scored 1,800 points in 118 games and helped Minnesota reach the Sweet 16 in 1989. The Gophers went one round farther in 1990. He stayed for his senior season because, as he told Horwedel, the team had “unfinished business.”

How did Burton become a top-10 NBA draft pick?

Minnesota had used Burton mainly as a forward. At a pre-draft camp in Orlando, he got to show teams something else. Burton told Horwedel he scored from the shooting-guard spot, then moved to point guard when another player hurt his ankle.

He was around 6-foot-8, bringing the ball up the floor. Burton believed that display moved him from the lower part of the first round to ninth overall. Miami took him with that pick in the 1990 draft.

Draft day did not feel like a simple reward. Burton said his mother was in a hospital bed in Atlantic City, gravely ill. Staff sat her up so she could watch him be selected. Once doctors told him she was stable, he flew to Miami.

His rookie year offered good reason for Horwedel’s later faith. Burton played 76 games, started 26 and averaged 12 points. He made the NBA’s All-Rookie Second Team. He also learned how much harder the league was than he had imagined. Asked what surprised him most, Burton gave Horwedel a short answer: “How good those guys were.”

Why did Burton’s playing time fall in Miami?

Burton averaged 11.2 points in his second season and started 50 games. Then his place in Miami’s lineup shrank. His scoring average fell to 7.8 and then 7.0 over the next two seasons. Miami waived him on November 3, 1994.

Those numbers show what happened on the court. Burton gave Horwedel a more personal account of what was happening away from it.

He said he had witnessed violence as a child and later learned that he was dealing with post-traumatic stress. In the NBA, he missed the closeness he had known with teammates at Minnesota. He said he felt isolated, struggled to trust people and began drinking. He sought treatment for depression.

“I get up every day working with them. I'm looking for me every day.”
— Willie Burton, on Tales From the Association

Burton was clear that help mattered. He credited NBA programs and people who worked with him for helping him understand what he was facing. He also resisted the idea that treatment was a quick fix. When Horwedel asked why his minutes had dropped, Burton spoke about being young, making poor decisions and trying to work out who he was while people kept making demands of him.

There is no box-score formula for separating those pressures from a player’s role on a team. Burton did not offer one. In Miami, he said, several young players wanted the ball, while the team needed more veterans to help them play together.

How did Willie Burton score 53 points against Miami?

Philadelphia signed Burton on November 8, 1994, five days after Miami waived him. With the Sixers, he found a coach who wanted him to shoot. Burton told the interviewer that coach Fred Carter Lucas would take him out when he passed up a shot he could have taken. For a scorer used to weighing his place in Miami, the message was plain.

The Heat saw the result just over a month later. Burton made seven two-point baskets and five three-pointers, good for 29 points from the floor. The rest came at the line: 24 free throws, 24 points.

He needed only 19 field-goal attempts to reach 53. He also played 43 minutes, grabbed eight rebounds and made three assists. Free throws were the startling part: Burton went to the line 28 times and missed four. The Sixers’ account of the game records both his shooting line and the 105–90 win.

His total passed the Spectrum mark of 52 set by Michael Jordan. Horwedel remembered watching it happen in person. He also remembered attaching himself to Burton as a kid, sure there was more to the player than his usual numbers showed. On this night, there was plenty for everyone to see.

Burton told the interviewer that Philadelphia gave him the freedom to look for his shot. That explains the chance he had. The free throws explain how the score got so high.

What happened to Burton after Philadelphia?

The 53-point game was a peak, not the start of a long run as Philadelphia’s lead scorer. Burton later played for Atlanta, San Antonio and Charlotte. Across eight NBA seasons, he appeared in 316 games and averaged 10.3 points.

In January 1997, he stepped away from basketball to focus on his health. He told the interviewer he entered a behavioral treatment center after periods of binge drinking and drug use. He had children by then. Burton said he did not want to keep living that way.

When he returned to the NBA with San Antonio, his job was different. Burton said coach Gregg Popovich knew he was a scorer and used him when the team needed one. Much of Burton’s work came in practice, where he went against Sean Elliott. He liked the competition, even when Elliott got the better of him.

An Achilles injury later changed what he could do. Burton said he tried to play through it in Charlotte and continued his career overseas, but his leg never felt the same. The old question of how many points he might score had become harder to ask.

What does Willie Burton do for students?

Burton eventually returned to the degree he had wanted before the NBA intervened. The University of Minnesota says he came back in 2012 to complete it. The school retired his No. 34 jersey in 2020.

In the interview, Burton said his experiences had led him to write a curriculum he called XLU. He wanted students to have ways to recognize and talk about social and emotional problems before those problems followed them into adult life. He also described Project Safe Campus, a school safety program he had created.

Burton’s program website calls the curriculum Excel U. It describes school and community work aimed at students’ well-being and their choices in and out of class. That description comes from the program itself; Burton’s account of why he built it is the more telling part.

He told the interviewer he loved working with students. Some were athletes, and some were not. Each day, he said, he went into that work with a particular child in mind: “I'm looking for me every day.”