Basketball: Hot future ahead of Marks at the Heat

By PETER JESSUP

If persistence pays off, basketball is going to pay off in spades for Aucklander Sean Marks.

Genetics gave him a head start, with mother Sheila and father Greg both over the 6ft mark and Sean dodging light fittings at 6ft 10in (2.08m).

So from an early age he was marked out as a basketballer. Talent, attitude and focus have put him where he is today - sitting ready for his second big game in the world's greatest basketball league.

After three years on the fringe of the NBA, the likeable Marks has earned the start he has long deserved.

Under Butch Carter at the Toronto Raptors he was absolute last choice, last man off the bench, and played a total of 40 minutes in two seasons.

Under Pat Riley at his new team the Miami Heat, he had 25 minutes in each of the major warm-up games and 17 minutes in the season-opener against the Raptors in Miami on Thursday.

Six of the 10 players Riley used had more minutes on court. Two of the named 12 did not play at all.

So it looks as though Marks is going to get good time from Riley, the Kiwi's five points, eight rebounds, four blocks and one assist helping underline his worth in the Heat's first-up 97-92 win over the Raptors.

Marks has been slated as back-up for centre Alonzo Mourning, 31, who scored 25 points against the Raptors, and forward Brian Grant, 29, who finished with 20 points. Those two played 32 minutes each, Mourning with a major kidney problem.

Riley brought in 34-year-old cover Chris Gatling, who has been on the Heat's roster three times but always traded off.

Riley has not listed Gatling (unfit) and two others - Ernest Brown (broken thumb) and Malik Allen (hamstring) - on the starting roster of 12, meaning they cannot play until round six next Saturday.

That makes it likely Marks will play against Cleveland in Miami today, travel to meet Atlanta tomorrow, Seattle on Tuesday, and Milwaukee on Thursday before Gatling and company are available to play Sacramento.

As the first New Zealander to make the NBA, with a guaranteed income of around $1.2 million a season, Marks has a lot to thank former North Harbour coach Jerry Webber for.

The Californian was here for two seasons - long enough to haul Marks from the Rangitoto College team to the national league.

Webber went to Marks' parents and told them their boy deserved a shot at the top. He returned to the States promising to send contacts.

Sean's father Greg said the phone and fax started going soon after with teams demanding video and statistics. Offers came from Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Los Angeles universities.

For Greg Marks, raised in Fiji until he was five and later on a globetrotting engineer, the idea of Sean leaving school to earn a living overseas was not foreign.

"We flew to Los Angeles, rented a car and visited the colleges where he had offers around LA," Greg Marks said.

Sean played his first trial game, and as his dad remembers it, "this skinny little white kid was up against these black stars that were on the verge of the NBA, some of them in it already."

Marks struggled.

Webber was watching. He told the gangly Aucklander to demand the ball in his next game. Marks did and made a name for himself.

Within 48 hours he was signed to the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed a political science degree while bolstering the NCAA team.

Then came two frustrating, bench-warming seasons at Toronto, playing the equivalent of one whole game from a season of 86.

The highlight last year was performing with the Tall Blacks at the Sydney Olympics.

It was Marks who chased Toronto team-mate and Dream-Teamer Vince Carter to bring the Americans back to the court, where they had just beaten the Tall Blacks, to face the haka.

A bad off-season followed, with a trip to Poland resulting in a badly-ripped shoulder that took months to heal.

That is all over now. After a month in a Miami hotel, staffers from the Heat have been showing Marks' new wife Jennifer around town as she shops for a home. That is a sure sign they want him to stay.

Riley, son of major league baseballer Leon, of the Philadelphia Phillies, and brother of New York Giants defensive back Lee, scored his 1050th NBA victory against Toronto and holds the record for the most playoff wins, 147. He was a major attraction for Marks. And Marks has impressed with his attitude.

Now it's a matter of whether he can handle the grind, five games a week, sleeping on planes, missing home, his wife and good food.

"Sean has always been completely focused on where he wants to go," his father said. "I'm sure he'll get there."

His availability for the Tall Blacks as they campaign towards the world championships in Indianapolis next year is uncertain, but he will definitely be involved in the champs themselves, assuming selection, which would seem a formality.

An initial Commonwealth championship will be held in Manchester next year preceding the Commonwealth Games, which Marks is unlikely to be released for.