The Cursed Legend of Bill Walton: The Greatest Passing Center in NBA History

Nikola Jokic is 28 years old. He averages 6.6 assists in the NBA and has five consecutive seasons above 7 (9.8 last year). Something that no pure center in history has achieved and obvious proof that the brilliant Serbian has many options to retire (in many years) as the best passing center the NBA has ever seen. A tradition that began with Wilt Chamberlain, the only center who has led a season in total assists (not on average: 8.6 per night in 1967-68) and who, going through milestones such as Arvydas Sabonis’ NBA stage, now It spreads in a basketball that requires very different profiles from interior players than those of years ago: Marc Gasol, Draymond Green, Bam Adebayo and, of course, the wonderful Jokic, are to a greater or lesser extent point centers, fives who manage the attack and create for their peers.

But there was one who is still considered the best at that, the great yardstick to measure Jokic if you will (in a very different basketball) and surely the greatest player who ever was because of injuries: Bill Walton, the Red Giant .

There is something that tinges with a cursed legend, at least outside the United States, in the greats of the NBA in the 70s. Because what came later, starting with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird just when the big league began to creep into the houses all over the world, made it seem like there had been nothing just before. Largely for this reason, and beyond the gigantic Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving, John Havlicek, Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, Bob Lanier, George Gervin, Rick Barry, Bob McAdoo are not usually valued as much as they should be. , Dave Cowens, Walt Frazier…

…And Bill Walton, a free verse who is now an eccentric television commentator and a character who borders the contours of the NBA. Vegetarian, activist and with the hippy aftertaste of his years of protests against the Vietnam War, his time in the dungeons of Los Angeles and his fights with the legendary John Wooden, his coach at UCLA and his great life mentor, about himself whether or not he cut his hair at once. He did, by the way, when, after refusing for the umpteenth time, Wooden told him: “Okay, we’re going to miss you on the team.” Walton, Luke’s father (Kings coach, champion with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol’s Lakers), and the player who could have been a top 10 player in history, at least. He seemed even more than that, both in College and at his peak performances in the NBA. But he simply ended up being a star stolen by injuries. Perhaps the greatest of all.

In high school he had nasty ankle, foot and leg injuries, and underwent surgery for a serious knee injury. With UCLA he had a back problem that forced him to undergo a difficult operation a quarter of a century later, in 2009 and after arriving at the hospital without being able to walk. And in the NBA, disaster struck, especially because of the left foot, the great Achilles heel of a superlative player. Injuries slowed him down in his first two years with the Trail Blazers (he was drafted number 1 in 1974) while he acquired an unfair reputation as a soft player and his meatless diet, political activism and subsequent lack of concentration were questioned…

Finally, his departure from the Blazers was marked by a bitter confrontation with the franchise, which he accused of having neither ethics nor professional capacity to manage his physical problems. After being injured in the 1977-78 season, he returned in the playoffs in a highly questioned decision by the franchise’s doctors. He asked for a transfer, did not play the following season because it was not granted and left in 1979 for his native San Diego to play for the Clippers. There he signed for seven years and seven million dollars… and played 14 games in his first three seasons (1979-82). After his redemption in the Celtics, injuries again accelerated the end of his career, in 1988, after another season without playing and before a failed attempt to return in 1990.

Walton apologized to Portland and the Trail Blazers, where he was much more than a player, in 2009. He regretted his bitter departure from the team in which he became an icon. He later expressed bitterness at not having been able to succeed in San Diego, his home. And before he had done it by saying goodbye to UCLA with defeat after an unforgettable career. He was in the 1974 Final Four, with two overtimes and in the semifinals, after being overcome by North Carolina State. “It is a stigma that I will always carry in my soul,” he said. His rival on that black night was David Thompson, number 1 in the draft in 1975 and the player whom Michael Jordan idolized during his childhood in Wilmington. Basketball caused him a lot of bitterness but it was also the passion of his life, since he was a lanky, red-haired boy with speech problems who found in that game the oasis that relaunched his self-esteem. Then, of course, he became an extraordinary star.

Because Walton was an NBA champion and MVP of the regular phase and the Finals, a two-time university champion and a center with incredible defensive and rebounding ability and a delicious instinct to create offensive play from the post, with his back to the rim. His passes as soon as they rebounded, before hitting the ground, his blocks and his movements four meters from the rim made him, for a stretch, surely the best player in the world. Wooden said there had never been a center like him in College. And Wooden had coached, just before, Lew Alcindor, who would later become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. By consensus, the best university student in history.

Between high school and college, Walton went five years without losing a game. With UCLA he won two titles (1972 and 73) with two awards for Best Player of the Final Four and two for College Player of the Year. The Bruins went 88 games without losing, a legendary streak that ended on January 19, 1974 in a game against Notre Dame in which Walton played handicapped by the aforementioned back problems. In his second year he averaged 21.1 points and 15.5 rebounds with 65% shooting from the field for a team that won all its games by an average of 30 points; During his stay at UCLA 20.3, 15.7 and 5.5 assists with a balance of 86 wins and 4 losses. In the 1973 final, against Memphis State, he played one of the best games ever seen in College: 44 of his team’s 85 points, 21 of 22 on field goals, 13 rebounds. A giant among men.

In the NBA, Walton led the Blazers to the 1977 title, the explosion of a franchise that was only seven years old and that until that 76-77 season had not played in the playoffs or finished with a winning record. The arrival of coach Jack Ramsay and the union in the areas of Walton and former ABA Maurice Lucas triggered a Cinderella that in the Western final (the only Kareem vs Walton that took place in the playoffs) swept the Lakers and the Finals They came back from 2-0 down to the Sixers with four straight wins. In the series against Kareem, Walton averaged 19.3 points, 14.8 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 2.3 blocks. In the Finals 18.5+19+5.2+3.7, with 20 points, 23 rebounds, 7 assists and 8 blocks in the sixth and final game. Gene Shue, the Sixers coach, said he had just seen the “best interior player in history,” a guy who gave himself an official 2.11 because he didn’t like being called a seven-footer (2.13). But, in reality, he was closer to 2.18 than to that 2.11 and only between the ages of 15 and 16 did he go from 1.85 to 2.01.

After that triumphant year, the Blazers started the 1977-78 season with a 50-10 record, in a slump until Walton, who had been an all-star for the second year (he didn’t play in the first year due to injury) and who averaged At that time 18.9 points, 13.2 rebounds, 5 assists and 2.5 blocks. It earned him the MVP and entry into the Best Quintet and the Best Defensive Quintet, but the Blazers finished (without him) 58-24 and his effort to return in the playoffs led to the disagreement with the doctors to his ugly end of the stage in the Blazers.

After his terrible time with the Clippers, from San Diego to LA (“basketball was horrible and the management of the franchise was immoral, corrupt and illegal but otherwise it was not bad”), he tried to enjoy basketball again in a contender for the ring and offered himself to the Lakers and Celtics. Jerry West doubted the durability of his foot while Larry Bird gave the go-ahead and Red Auerbach silenced the doctors who advised against signing him (“I’m in charge here,” he said in the hospital without releasing his famous cigar). In Boston he was chosen Best Sixth Man, the only player who had that award and MVP until James Harden repeated that particular double. And he was important in the 1986 ring as the main substitute for one of the best teams in history, the one he formed with Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish. In this 1985-86 season he played 80 games, almost a miracle, with almost 20 minutes a night.

Now that he values ​​players who protest and raise their voices for social struggle so much, more should be said about Bill Walton, a white player who got involved with causes that many like him felt were not theirs. He was the son of parents who didn’t watch sports and who talked at home about art, politics and music. And now that on the courts the IQ, the ability to pass and the mobility of the interior players are valued above all, the figure of the Red Giant should be vindicated more, who did all this and was at the same time capable of winning almost all old school battles in the zones. How great would his legacy be without those damn injuries? We will never know, but we do know what he was able to do fully, from the Bruins to the Blazers and from there to that fantastic last effort as a secondary player in the Celtics, now at 33 years old. And he was majestic.

2023-10-13 13:00:09
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