WASHINGTON, Ind. -- When asked how to explain the differences between her three sons who all hover near 7 feet tall, who all were Indiana's Mr. Basketball, who all won state titles for their small hometown in southern Indiana, Lorri Zeller likes to paint a visual picture.

If there's a room full of people, and her eldest, Luke, walks in, he will say hello to everyone. He will chat and small-talk, he will butter-up and laugh, and by the end of the evening he will know everyone's name and everyone will love him.

Her youngest, Cody, will be just as friendly and outgoing -- and somehow find a way to play a practical joke on as many people as possible.

Tyler, her middle son, will be cordial and smiling. He'll shake hands as he makes his way to the corner of the room. He will then spend the rest of the evening huddled with his closest friends, deep in thoughtful conversation.

Tyler Zeller is the one who always has veered to a slightly different path. He's the only one who left the state to attend college, making his parents drive 10 hours to see him at North Carolina -- which they did often. He's the only one who would rather listen than talk, the one who wishes he could have studied engineering and never passes up an opportunity to build something with his own hands.

He's the only one who was so ambivalent about basketball as a child that he nearly gave it up -- before realizing that the court is where he is able to find his greatest release, where his intense, serious personality has led him to success and drives him to strive for more as he begins his NBA career with the Cavaliers Tuesday against Washington.

In a family full of athletes, it was difficult for any of the Zeller boys to avoid sports. Growing up in Washington, Ind., a 12,000-population town with the Hoosiers-like gym that seats 7,090, it's impossible not to gravitate toward basketball. Somehow, Tyler Zeller managed, for a while.

Inside the prep basketball passion of Washington, Ind.

Still, he was the son of Steve Zeller, the youngest of 12 children who is 6-feet-4 and still boasts of the 30 rebounds he snagged in a single high school game in Springville, Iowa. His mother, Lorri, stands 6 feet and played basketball at Coe College in Iowa. Lorri's brother, Al Eberhard, was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1974 and played four seasons in the NBA.

Basketball is in his blood. So Tyler always was at the gym with Luke and his dad -- and Cody when he was old enough -- always running into the blocking pads and boxing mitts Steve used to shove his kids around in training. He was always competing with his brothers, too -- whether it was who scored the most points, ate the most at dinner, or could make a candy bar last the longest.

But Tyler had a tough time living up to the legend of Luke, who went on to play at Notre Dame and survived final cuts for the Phoenix Suns' roster this season. People in Washington began talking about Luke, now 6-11, when he was in eighth grade. They knew he would be a basketball star.

When Luke nailed a 40-foot heave with 1.8 seconds left in overtime of the 2005 Class 3A state finals, giving Washington a 74-72 victory, his celebrity status in town was sealed.

That was the same year Tyler decided he might like basketball, after all. Until then, he'd been on the fence. Part of the reason was he was only 5-10 in eighth grade. Part was being Luke's little brother.

"Too many expectations and I didn't want to live up to them," Tyler said, shrugging. "And I enjoyed doing other things."

One was creating structures with Legos -- he still says he wishes engineering and basketball could coexist in college -- and Steve likes to tell about the time they lost their middle child for about three hours, finding him nestled in the walk-in closet with an enormous Lego creation. He helped clear trees out of the one-acre family yard and enjoyed helping to excavate a backyard pond and build log benches.

He's never minded being alone among the corn fields and farms that surround Washington for miles.

"He's a lot like me," said Steve Zeller, a plant manager for the Perdue turkey factory in town. "We can sit in a room in silence and have a great conversation."

Tyler Zeller

Cody Zeller

Luke Zeller

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By Tyler's freshman year at Washington High, however, he had sprouted to 6-6. He was realizing how much he enjoyed the competition he found in basketball -- and how good he was, too. All those years of trying to imitate Luke's silky outside shot, all those hours in the gym pounding his father while trying to score from the low post, all those competitions trying to best Cody in everything had finally sunk in.

When Tyler started his first game on the varsity team as a sophomore, scoring and rebounding in double digits, Washington coach Gene Miiller overheard someone talking to Tyler's mom.

"Mrs. Zeller, I didn't even know you had a middle son," she said.

"Luke was practically an All-American as an eighth grader," Miiller said. "And everyone was talking about how good the younger one [Cody] was. And no one really knew too much about Tyler. In a way, I think that's part of the reason why he's so driven. In a way, he's got that little chip on shoulder and wants to prove he's good."

So Tyler did everything Luke did on the court -- won Mr. Basketball by averaging 33.1 points his senior year, and easily captured the 2008 state title while scoring 43 points in a 84-60 victory over Fort Wayne Harding. He was third in his graduating class with a 3.97 GPA -- fulfilling his plan to achieve academically but without having to give a graduation speech as valedictorian or salutatorian. Luke (valedictorian) and Cody (salutatorian) did not escape that chore.

At North Carolina, Tyler forged his own path, again, when he used time recovering from injuries his first two seasons to bulk up. Bigger and stronger as a senior, he was dominant while averaging 16.3 points and earning ACC Player of the Year honors.

"He's so much stronger," Cody confirmed. "Maybe in a couple years I can catch up to him, but he's definitely great in the post and he shoots the ball well, too."

In June, he became the first of the Zellers drafted by an NBA team. Cody, a sophomore at Indiana who has been labeled one of the best players in the country, will be the next.

It's a big deal in Washington, where a neighbor, Boyd Grain, painted a semi-truck to commemorate each state title Luke, Tyler and Cody earned for their hometown. All three boys have their name listed on the sign at the city limits for winning Mr. Basketball honors -- beneath Steve Bouchie, the only other Mr. Basketball winner in Washington in 1979. The local radio station is having Cavaliers games broadcast this season so Washingtonians can keep up with how Tyler does during his rookie campaign.

Cavaliers coach Byron Scott already has called Zeller the most improved player through training camp, a development that showed when he started against the Indiana Pacers and logged 13 points and seven rebounds.

"Everything just kind of fell into place that night," Tyler said. "I finally quit thinking about everything I needed to do and just did it. I just went and played."

It's been a slightly different path than the rest of his family, but he's remained a Zeller through and through. All three boys help with a charity created by Luke called DistinXtion, a basketball school of sorts that teaches skills on and off the court.

Based in Washington, it's drawn children from neighboring towns, and Tyler recently held a camp in Cleveland. Though not strictly a religious organization, DistinXtion's "X" is meant to stand for the Greek letter for Christ, and the entire Zeller family has a strong Christian faith.

But in most other ways, Tyler doesn't mind veering from his brothers. He's proud to be different. So serious and driven now, he might not have displayed those traits without Luke and Cody as his gregarious and goofy brothers.

"When all three of us are together in a room it's a little different," Cody said. "We're never too serious -- unless it's about basketball."

Then again, maybe the Zeller brothers really are alike.