# Fazekas' family: Tough act to follow



## edwardcyh (Dec 13, 2005)

*Fazekas' family: Tough act to follow*
11:57 AM CDT on Tuesday, July 10, 2007
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]

LAS VEGAS – Nobody knows what's going to happen in the NBA career of Nick Fazekas.

Based on family history, though, something interesting is probably in store for the Mavericks' top draft pick. It seems to happen to every generation of the Fazekas clan.

It was Nick's grandfather who found himself in a concentration camp in the 1950s. It was his father, just a few years ago, who was morbidly overweight at 425 pounds.

In both cases, there have been happy endings.

Fazekas, taken by the Mavs with the 34th overall pick in the draft, is a 6-11, 240-pound forward who is slow afoot but quick to a rebound and to pull the trigger on an open shot. He has flaws in his game, which have been well documented. But by all accounts, he has a fire in his heart that is tough to vanquish.

"If you're a Fazekas," he says, "you have to be tough-minded."

His grandfather made sure the toughness gene was in place long before Nick came along. Albert Fazekas was a soldier in the Hungarian war and spent more than three years in a Soviet gulag after he refused to join the Communist party.

He suffered lots of injuries, including a severe leg burn when he tried to set up a diversion during an escape attempt.

"I had to escape," Albert Fazekas says. "I was determined to get out. But I'm surprised Nick remembers me talking about it. It's pretty hard to imagine if you haven't been through it."

But Nick Fazekas does remember. The Mavs' draft pick remembers the stories vividly.

"It's wild to hear him talk about it," Fazekas says. "There were signs up for him in Hungary during the Communist rule because they were after him. When he got out, he migrated to Austria with my grandmother. They caught a flight to America.

"They were machinists, and they knew somebody in Denver who was a machinist. They didn't know anything about Denver. But that's the only place they knew there was a job."

So for the last 50 years, the Fazekas family has called the Denver area home. Nick grew up in Arvada, Colo.

"I was talking about that with my dad a while back," Fazekas says. "It's pretty unique. Most families have been in America since the 1800s or early 1900s. We've only been here 50 years. My uncle and my aunt were both born in Hungary. My father was the first one born here."

His dad is another story of perseverance. Joe Fazekas was 6-10 and played basketball in college and professionally in Argentina. He never made the NBA.

After he was too old to continue playing, he settled back in Denver, where he became a bus driver. When Nick was a freshman at Nevada, his father's weight ballooned to 425 pounds.

"He was unhappy with his life," Nick says. "He was eating all the time. He was one big, huge dude. We called him a walking heart attack."

So Nick asked his father to start visiting the gym. And to change his eating habits. He was scared that his father would not live long enough to see him play in the NBA.

"I'd call him every day and ask if he was going to the gym," Fazekas says. "He'd tell me he could barely wash his hair because his arms were so sore. But we found out he wasn't going as often as he needed to."

So a more drastic measure was taken. Joe Fazekas essentially gutted his house of food. He would stop at a grocery store on the way home, buy what he was eating for dinner, go home, cook it, eat it and then forget about food for the rest of the night.

Joe Fazekas has been down to about 290 pounds for more than a year now.

"I have to give him credit," Albert Fazekas says of his son. "He did it himself. He's not skinny now. But he got himself in a lot better shape."

Things like that have given the Fazekas folks a lot of lore.

"It's been a very unique family," Nick says. "That's where I get my toughness."

He'll probably need every drop of that toughness in his quest to become a full-fledged NBA player. Second-round draft picks often flame out before they can get used to the posh hotel rooms and private airplane flights. Others last a few seasons then are not heard from again.

A few make it to long, productive careers. But not many.

*But Fazekas plans on being one of those rare players. He's made up his mind that spending time in the developmental league, which Moe Ager, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and J.J. Barea all did as rookies last year, is not an appealing option to him.

"Definitely that would be a disappointment," he says. "I hope I don't have to take that route, and I'm going to work as hard as I can not to take that route."*

To stick with the Mavericks, Fazekas knows he has to do two things: rebound and improve his mobility. He's always been a good rebounder, although he's not a high-flying athlete. Most of his rebounds come below the rim.

But his lack of foot speed is his biggest flaw. He's already started mobility drills under the supervision of Mavs strength and conditioning coach Robert Hackett. It will not be an easy assignment, he said.

"Being able to move better, that's definitely a key for me," Fazekas says. "But I'm going to do whatever it takes to improve that."

With the lessons handed down from generations past, it's hard to bet against him. 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/071007dnspofazekas.2508a24.html


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## edwardcyh (Dec 13, 2005)

I am not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing that he doesn't want to start in D-League.

Good: finally a tall white dude with "attitude."

Bad: If stereotype continues to hold true, he's heading for D-League, and I'll use his very own words on him.... DISAPPOINTMENT.


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