Professional basketball player. A 6' 2" guard, Burden honed his ball-handling and shooting skills on the playgrounds of Albany New York, where he was nicknamed "Ticky" for the "tick-swish" sound the ball made going through the basket whenever he scored. He was a prolific scorer at Philip Schuyler High School (from which he graduated in 1972) in Albany and later at the University of Utah, where he was a first-team all-American for the 1974-75 season, when he averaged 28.7 points per game. In his first season as a professional, he scored 19.9 points per game for the Virginia Squires of the ABA. When the franchise folded in 1976 (the year the league merged with the NBA), he joined the Knicks. The Knicks hoped he would be part of the next-generation backcourt after the departures of Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe, who were nearing the ends of their careers. He was slowed by knee problems, however, and his time in pro ball ended abruptly in 1977 — he was not a favorite of the Knicks' coach at the time, Willis Reed — after he had played in just two games in his second season with the team. He subsequently had money problems — "I went a little wild with my bread," he acknowledged in a 2012 interview with The Albany Times Union — and in 1981 he was convicted of taking part in a $18,000 bank robbery in Hempstead, N.Y., the previous summer, after three other participants in the crime, including one of his oldest friends, testified against him. He spent almost two years at Auburn Correction Facility before a judge overturned his conviction on robbery charges in 1984. He won his appeal because police failed to obtain a search warrant before they entered his home and found stolen money.
Cause of death: Complications from amyloidosis.
Cause of death: Complications from amyloidosis.
Professional basketball player. A 6' 2" guard, Burden honed his ball-handling and shooting skills on the playgrounds of Albany New York, where he was nicknamed "Ticky" for the "tick-swish" sound the ball made going through the basket whenever he scored. He was a prolific scorer at Philip Schuyler High School (from which he graduated in 1972) in Albany and later at the University of Utah, where he was a first-team all-American for the 1974-75 season, when he averaged 28.7 points per game. In his first season as a professional, he scored 19.9 points per game for the Virginia Squires of the ABA. When the franchise folded in 1976 (the year the league merged with the NBA), he joined the Knicks. The Knicks hoped he would be part of the next-generation backcourt after the departures of Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe, who were nearing the ends of their careers. He was slowed by knee problems, however, and his time in pro ball ended abruptly in 1977 — he was not a favorite of the Knicks' coach at the time, Willis Reed — after he had played in just two games in his second season with the team. He subsequently had money problems — "I went a little wild with my bread," he acknowledged in a 2012 interview with The Albany Times Union — and in 1981 he was convicted of taking part in a $18,000 bank robbery in Hempstead, N.Y., the previous summer, after three other participants in the crime, including one of his oldest friends, testified against him. He spent almost two years at Auburn Correction Facility before a judge overturned his conviction on robbery charges in 1984. He won his appeal because police failed to obtain a search warrant before they entered his home and found stolen money.
Cause of death: Complications from amyloidosis.
Cause of death: Complications from amyloidosis.
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