Farewell, legendary basketball star Dead Head Bill Walton

Michael Vaccaro

NBA

From Michael Vaccaro

The voice on the other end of the line was clear and sounded familiar. It was Bill Walton and he was calling from Big Sur.

“The message was that you wanted to talk about Coach Wooden,” said Bill Walton. “I’m calling from the end of the world to talk about Coach Wooden.”

And he did. If there was one word to describe Bill Walton – who died of cancer on Monday at the age of 71 – it would be “authentic.” He was who he was and he did what he did and he believed what he believed, and depending on your view of the world, you could find that delightful or you could find that ill-tempered. He didn’t care.

“People just love that Coach Wooden and I got along so well,” Walton told me that day in 2005. “But it wasn’t great at all. He wanted the same thing I did. He wanted to win. And he wanted every player on the team to be part of that win.”

He laughed.

“And that,” he said, “was just beautiful, brother.”

In truth, Walton was perhaps the most selfless superstar of all time, playing on teams that embodied the game’s most fundamental and pure spirit. At UCLA, Wooden’s Bruins won the first 73 games Walton played in, the last of an 88-game winning streak that still stands as a record. Walton was the centerpiece of those teams that won two national championships, but he wasn’t the only piece – he played alongside 10 other players who went on to play in the NBA.

“When I was playing, they said I was moody,” Walton said. “But what made me moody was that people just wanted to talk to me, while Jamaal Wilkes is here and he’s great, as are Dave Meyers and Swen Nater.”

He later led the Portland Trail Blazers to perhaps the most exciting championship the NBA has ever seen. Walton led a dedicated supporting cast and stormed through the West alongside tough guy Mo Lucas. He then put the Sixers under pressure for two games in the Finals before bouncing back and winning four straight games to take the title. Eight Blazers averaged between 8 and 20 points. This was team basketball at an almost mythical level.

And the Blazers were even better the next year, standing at 50-10 when Walton’s career took a fateful turn when he injured his foot. Soon after, Walton’s relationship with the team fell apart and he played for his hometown San Diego Clippers for years while injured. Then a phone call from Red Auerbach changed what could have been a terrible ending to a beautiful basketball story. He asked Walton if he would be willing to take on a small but significant role with the Celtics.

“I told Red, ‘I’m walking to Boston to play with Larry Bird,'” Walton said. “Although I wasn’t sure I could walk from my living room to my patio.”

Those 1986 Celtics were the last member of the Walton Troika, a masterpiece of teamwork and camaraderie, and Walton played a crucial role in it: 19.3 minutes and enough of the old magic to make him Sixth Man of the Year and let the Celtics raise their 16th flag.

After his time as a basketball commentator, Walton earned a place in our consciousness for only occasionally commenting on the action in front of him, often comparing each team he saw through the prism of his old UCLA teams. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But if you got the joke (for him, it really wasn’t a joke), it was worth staying up late.

He was also possibly the world’s greatest authority on the Grateful Dead, so it seems right to end this with a Dead song that seems sad and compellingly fitting:

“Farewell, / Let your life go its own way

“Now there’s nothing left to tell / Let the words be yours, I’m done with mine.”