Bill Walton, legendary NBA player and broadcaster, dead at 71

NBA

By Don Burke

Bill Walton, the red-headed Deadhead, who led UCLA to 73 consecutive wins and a pair of back-to-back national championships in the early 1970s, before embarking on an injury-marred NBA career that still saw him become an integral part of world championship teams in Portland and Boston, died Monday after a long battle with cancer. He was 71. 

Following his retirement as a player, Walton embarked on a colorful career as a two-time Emmy-winning basketball analyst, most recently for ESPN on the network’s Pac-12 telecasts. To do it, he had to first overcome a debilitating stutter that plagued him for the first 28 years of his life. 

“I just wish that I had learned how to speak at a lot earlier age,” Walton told Deadline last year. “Nothing has changed my life more than learning how to speak. It’s my greatest accomplishment, and your worst nightmare. 

“I identify with everyone who faces struggles, challenges. And when you’re a stutterer, it completely changes your life. Because you’re constantly embarrassed and reluctant and ashamed. And you have to learn to overcome it. I am no longer ashamed about being a stutterer. I’m no longer self-conscious about being a stutterer. I am a stutterer.” 

A true Renaissance man, Walton enjoyed discussing philosophy and literature as much as he did breaking down Stanford’s pick-and-roll defense.

Maybe more. But his great love was music, most notably the Grateful Dead whom he often followed around the globe, tie-dyed shirt and all. 

In fact, he often dragged his longtime broadcast partner Dave Pasch down that rabbit hole with him, those ultra-colorful shirts occasionally making their way onto broadcasts that were often peppered with Grateful Dead references and lyrics. 

“Bill and I had a special friendship,” Pasch said Monday on ESPN. “He used to tell me a lot, he would take the headset off during a commercial break and just say to me, ‘I love you, but don’t tell anybody.’ 

“He just enjoyed the fact that I was his sparring partner. He could have fun with me and just take shots at me. I knew that it was all just part of the game, and off the air we had a great friendship. Bill paid for every meal. I remember the last game I had with Bill was Feb. 1 at USC. … We were talking a lot about the future. It was a conversation I’ll never forget.” 

The first pick in the 1974 NBA Draft by Portland who led the Trail Blazers to their only championship in 1976-77 and was the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1977-78, Walton was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall Fame in 1993. 

He battled foot injuries throughout his professional career and played just 468 games spread liberally over 10 seasons, missing most of five seasons and another four full seasons to injury. And while his lifetime numbers — 13.3 points and 10.5 rebounds per game — didn’t stand out, his contributions were enough to warrant his being named to the league’s 50th and 75th anniversary teams. 

That followed a collegiate career in which he was three times named the college player of the year while leading John Wooden’s Bruins to 73 of their record 88 consecutive victories. 

While freshmen were ineligible to play then, the Bruins finished 30-0 in each of his first two seasons on the varsity and 86-4 for his three-year career. In the 1973 NCAA championship game versus Memphis, Walton authored perhaps the greatest title-game performance ever when he made 21 of 22 shots from the floor and finished with 44 points in a runaway win. 

“My teammates … made me a much better basketball player than I could ever have become myself,” Walton said at his Hall of Fame speech. “The concept of team has always been the most intriguing aspect of basketball to me. If I had been interested in individual success or an individual sport, I would have taken up tennis or golf.” 

He also said he considered himself fortunate to have been guided by two of the game’s greatest minds in Wooden and Celtics executive Red Auerbach. 

“It’s very hard to put into words what he has meant to UCLA’s program, as well as his tremendous impact on college basketball,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said Monday. “Beyond his remarkable accomplishments as a player, it’s his relentless energy, enthusiasm for the game and unwavering candor that have been the hallmarks of his larger than life personality. … It’s hard to imagine a season in Pauley Pavilion without him.” 

Walton underwent 39 surgeries during his career and in the years since. He was bothered by a back ailment so severe that in 2008 caused him to have thoughts of suicide just to be rid of the pain. Yet the 2023 docuseries about him was titled “The Luckiest Guy In The World” because that is how, despite it all, Walton saw himself. 

He is survived by wife, Lori, and sons Adam, Nate, Chris and Luke. 

“He was the best of us,” Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who preceded Walton at UCLA, posted on X. 

— With AP