It isn’t a topic from which he’s shying away. Spieth was leaving Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas after having his most prolific performance of the summer for his hometown Dallas Mavericks — he had five points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal in 18 minutes in a win over the Boston Celtics on July 15 — while wearing a Ryder Cup backpack. In fact, before Jordan Spieth crossed the Atlantic and won his third major championship by claiming the British Open last weekend, one of the world’s most famous golfers had briefly been in Las Vegas to check on his younger brother.

While those 18 minutes in summer league may not have possessed the kind of gravity to the wider sporting world as Jordan Spieth’s topsy-turvy performance over the final 18 holes at Royal Birkdale Sunday, they were just as important to the younger Spieth, who graduated from Brown after a four-year career in which he finished third in the Ivy League in scoring last season, while also being named a third team academic all-American.

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None of that mattered in Las Vegas, though. It was about seizing every opportunity to impress the decision-makers on hand, and give them a reason to offer him a shot at a professional career.

“It’s been great,” the 6-foot-6 Spieth said. “Just getting the opportunity to come out here and in the minutes I get, try to produce when I get them.”

It turned out those were the only extended minutes Spieth would receive in Las Vegas, getting spotty playing time in three other games on a Mavericks team featuring several roster players, including flashy No. 9 overall pick Dennis Smith Jr. and Yogi Ferrell, an all-rookie second team selection last month. That’s life for players on the fringes of NBA summer league, where minutes wax and wane as their teams attempt to juggle multiple priorities.

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But in that performance, Spieth showed some of the qualities that turned him into a well-rounded contributor at Brown over the past four years — the same multidimensional skill set that once drew the eye of an assistant to Brown Coach Mike Martin while scouting a high school tournament in Dallas.

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At the time, Martin had no idea who either Spieth brother was. All he knew was that, after his assistant spotted Steven playing, that he had a potential target to become one of his first recruits shortly after landing the job in 2012.

“I’m trying to get a feel for the family, and they talk about having an older brother Jordan, who happens to be a pretty good golfer at Texas,” Martin said with a laugh. “That’s how the Spieths are. They are very genuine, humble people. Six months later, he turned pro, two years later he’s in the final group of The Masters, and he’s had an unbelievable career.

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“But we recruited Steven because we thought he was a really good basketball player, and that proved to be true.”

That’s not up for debate, as Spieth went on to play heavy minutes from the moment he arrived on campus at Brown, starting 117 of the 118 games he played in during his four years in Providence and averaging over 32 minutes per game.

He said his love affair with basketball began as a kid, as he began to gravitate toward the sport while his parents encouraged their children to play various sports, rather than sticking to one of them. But while he played football, baseball, soccer and hockey, he started playing in AAU tournaments when he was in fourth or fifth grade, and began to develop from there.

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And while Steven Spieth said he’s a good golfer in his own right — “When I get out there, and I’m playing a couple weeks in a row, I can get under 80” — he had his own reasons for why he chose basketball instead of golf.

“[Jordan] would go out every day at the country club in the summer, and it was 100 degrees,” Spieth said with a smile, “and I was in the gym, where it was air-conditioned, getting shots up.”

But while Spieth had a good college career, it was after a spike in his production as a senior — he averaged 17.3 points per game while shooting 48.7 percent overall and 40.7 percent from three-point range — that he got the invite to Las Vegas, though multiple scouts in attendance had yet to see him play before his extended run against the Celtics.

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That’s something Spieth’s older brother never has to worry about. In golf, there isn’t a coach preventing you from playing, or drawing up plays for someone else. Every swing and every decision is in the player’s control.

“I think it’s definitely more difficult,” Jordan Spieth said last week of breaking into a team sport. “Being an individual sport, you control your own outcome. That’s what I loved about golf and I loved going out there and putting in the work and the ball is never going to somebody else. It was always in my hands. And therefore, I think Steven wishes the ball was in his hands as much as possible, but it’s got to be passed around. And, therefore, credit can sometimes be given elsewhere, versus golf.

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“But both are extremely difficult to do to make it to the highest level, in anything you do in life. It’s difficult and lonely, even in a team sport. It’s uncharted territory but for a few. And I think he’s on a tremendous path. He had a great summer league. And I think he’s very excited for what’s coming in the future. And I’m excited for him.”

With summer league now over, the question for the younger Spieth brother will be what, exactly, that future holds for him. The NBA is unlikely to come calling, meaning his most likely path to playing professionally this fall will either be a trip to the NBA’s development league (now called the G-League), or going overseas to a foreign league to begin his pro career.

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Wherever he winds up, though, Steven Spieth knows he’ll have his brother’s support — just as he’s supported his brother throughout his meteoric rise to the top of his chosen profession.

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“There’s nothing but love and support between the two of us,” Steven Spieth said. “We’re both really, really supportive of each other living out our dreams, and blessed that we’re able to do that.”

Jordan Spieth’s career is already fully underway. His brother hopes his is just getting started.

— Chuck Culpepper contributed to this report.