Moving from Tullamore to Ohio, aged four, with his family put the Offaly man on a path that nobody else had tread before.
Success elsewhere followed in his career, including a European title with Panathinaikos and sealing league glory for Real Madrid.
However, Burke is best known here for making it in the States, but will the 50-year-old remain the only Irish-born NBA player forever more?
“I hope not, because as time stretches on, you need the jersey on the wall that kids can relate to,” he says at Basketball Ireland’s Jnr NBA finals – a children’s basketball programme.
“The demographic of Irish basketball is changing. The whole nation is changing with the height and the demographic of people. There’s a lot of athletes coming that are going to rock the boat and people are going to say, ‘Wow, that kid is Irish’.”
Irish basketball continues to show promise in the States. Two Irish-born college players made it to March madness this year and Burke’s old Ireland team-mate Jay Larranaga was briefly linked with the Charlotte Hornets top job last month.
Having spent three seasons in the NBA, Burke must keep an eye on the competition as it reaches the business end?
“Would you be shocked if I said I don’t watch? If the NBA finals were on, I’d be here,” he says. “It’s a number of different things. I cannot watch and not get the testosterone going. I start thinking, ‘If I was there, I’d box him’ and I get amped up a little bit.
“And the other part of it is I just see a lot of the politics.”
While he can overcome the latter to watch the end of the series, the sport’s uglier side has left him admiring the GAA for “not selling out” to big business.
Even if GAAGO investment has been criticised, the GAA’s €110m revenue for 2023 will invariably pale into insignificance when compared with the NBA’s $10bn.
“What if Ireland is ahead in the idea of not selling out? It’s not morals, you’re looking at a different ethos. And I think that ethos is what’s protecting the GAA.”
Burke’s latest trip to Dublin was a more modest affair, promoting the children’s basketball programme called Jr NBA, which aims at being “fun, not creating basketball players”.
A reality away from the commercialised world of the NBA playoffs, which this year will be shorn of its coterie of usual superstars.
“The NBA now is understood to be entertainment,” Burke adds. “It’s a $20 beer, it’s explosions, it’s the latest hip-hop track, beautiful dancers and there’s a basketball game going on. And we’re left thinking, is it all fake?
“Is it just like the pro wrestlers where you have somebody tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘This is where I pick you up and throw you into the stands, like we practised?’
“The more fans they can get in, the more money they can make.
“LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry did not make it out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time in so many years. So now they’re saying, ‘Who is next?’
“The analytics are now not on the sport. They’re on the marketing. ‘If we put $100,000 into the Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, could he be our next LeBron? Even if he misses all his shots?’
“‘Don’t show the negatives, just show the positives. Put a Superman cape on him and don’t let them see the wires’.”
While creating such an NBA superstar may be beyond Ireland, another Irish-born player may not be.
