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DJ Burns Jr. rewards NC State for building around him en route to men’s Final Four
At every stop, the talented big man has proven he can be an offensive focal point
Watching NC State forward DJ Burns Jr. reduce a long line of defenders to barbecue chicken (Shaquille O’Neal’s recipe) this past weekend took Frank Hamrick back to the years he coached the breakout star of the 2024 NCAA tournament in high school.
It was in the gym at York Preparatory Academy in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where Hamrick, then the school’s coach, witnessed the carnage Burns would leave behind on the daily.
“DJ would hurt a lot of people, and it would be bloody,” Hamrick recalled. “Bloody noses, busted lips, banged-up bodies. The funny thing about it? He never got hurt.”
In an era of basketball where the style of play has been shifted by analytics — and analytics dictate that the 3-point shot is king — this year’s Final Four features four teams taking an old-school approach. From 7-foot-2 center Donovan Clingan of UConn to 7-4 center Zach Edey of Purdue, the tallest player in Big Ten history, size matters in the quest for this year’s NCAA title. For NC State, Burns — who is 6-9 and 275 pounds — will be on display this weekend in Phoenix in one of basketball’s most uniquely shaped packages.
Unlike Clingan (listed at 280 pounds), and Edey (300) whose weights are stretched out over taller frames, Burns is a wide body whose listed dimensions are the latest example of the creative license teams take with their athletes. He can’t outjump his opponents (“you can’t get a foot under there, just not enough room,” Hamrick said), or outrun them and would fail most anyone’s first impression of a basketball player.
But to NC State, who will play Purdue on Saturday, the run-up to the school’s first Final Four since 1983 would not be possible without Burns.
“DJ is one of those guys that I don’t think there’s an answer for,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. The Red Raiders lost to the Wolfpack in the first round. “There’s no way to replicate what he’s doing.”
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While Burns has emerged as one of the tournament’s biggest stars in leading NC State’s improbable run (the Wolfpack ended the regular season losing seven of nine games before the current nine-game winning streak), his play has been consistent all season and he’s averaged 13 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. His 29 points against Duke on Sunday in the Elite Eight was his best scoring game in his two years with the Wolfpack and it was a performance so impressive that it made Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić late to his postgame news conference.
“He’s amazing,” Jokić said. “I think he’s so skilled, especially lefty … seems like teammates like to play with him.”
While Jokić is a bit taller than Burns and a bit more svelte, the traits the two bigs share include:
- Superior footwork around the basket, with the uncanny ability to score. “We’re watching film and he hit a spin fadeaway kind of like Escalade from the AND1 Mixtapes,” Marquette guard Tyler Kolek said. Marquette lost to NC State in the Sweet 16.
- Incredible court vision and the ability to deliver pinpoint passes. “You kinda gotta pick your poison with them,” McCasland said, “because DJ Burns is such a good passer.”
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The common thread with Burns, which was further solidified this season with NC State’s Final Four run, is if you commit to building around him, you can win.
He won at York Prep when Hamrick, upon meeting a 6-7 kid who played multiple instruments (piano, upright bass, tuba and the saxophone), decided to build his high school team around an eighth grader.
“He was playing with mostly juniors and seniors and he wasn’t initially the first option,” Hamrick said. “But late in the season we played a team with mostly seniors and DJ was impossible to stop. Those older guys started feeding him, and that’s when we decided to build around him.”
He won in AAU playing for the Georgia Stars, when he was coached by Chris Williams.
“I had seven kids in the top 100 in the country,” Williams said. “And all the guys knew that if DJ got touches, we were going to be successful.”
“I don’t know how you guard him. I hope nobody figures that out. I’m glad he’s here. I’m glad he’s on my team.”
— NC State coach Kevin Keatts
He won at Winthrop University, where he was the Big South Player of the Year (2021-22) and Big South Freshman of the Year (2019-2020) while helping the team to the 2021 NCAA tournament. And he’s now a winner at NC State, where coach Kevin Keatts had to change his approach to accommodate Burns’ unique skills.
“He changed me. I’ve never thrown the ball inside as much as I have in the last couple of years,” Keatts said March 31. “Great touch. Great footwork.
“I don’t know how you guard him. I hope nobody figures that out. I’m glad he’s here. I’m glad he’s on my team.”
So are NC State fans in Raleigh, North Carolina, many of whom showed up at Applebee’s on Tuesday to meet the DJs — DJ Burns and teammate DJ Horne.
“As far as the whole fan favorite thing, yeah, I have definitely noticed it,” Burns said March 28 when asked about NIL opportunities tied to his popularity. “It’s been kind of crazy going from having almost zero media attention to a camera following you around all day. It’s been cool.”
And it’s just rewards for a player who Hamrick immediately knew was different upon their first meeting.
“A bit shy then, but the same smile you see today,” Hamrick said. “Coaching him in a big game for the first time, he was a kid who just didn’t understand at the start. To him it was just a game, and all he wanted to do was play.”
When Hamrick was a coach, he read the poem If by Rudyard Kipling to his teams. He shared it with his players because someone shared it with him when he was a kid. He never knew whether that poem registered with his players until a game when Hamrick, believing his team wasn’t getting calls from officials, completely lost it.
“I’m losing my mind and I got a tech, but I wanted it — all of it — and kept at [the officials],” Hamrick said. “And then all of a sudden somebody lays hands on my shoulders and whispers in my ear the opening lines of the poem: ‘If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.’ “
Hamrick turned around and saw Burns.
“I was speechless, and I just shut my mouth and sat on the bench,” Hamrick said. “He got the whole lesson and I didn’t.
“At that moment, I knew that he gets it. He’s special. And he’s going to be OK.”