Why was Bill Walton good at basketball?

[jim_lewis]

In addition to all of his other attributes which have been listed, he played with an intensity that is rarely seen and even then usually only among undersized guards.


I think I have seen (at least on television) almost all of the great college players, and I have never seen a better college player than Walton. He excelled at everything you could ask of a big man. plus he led the world in intensity.


I tell my sons that there are 3 players I wish they could have seen: Chamberlain, Maravich and Walton.

[Kalen Braley]

There is no doubt Walton was an excellent player and deserving of his spot in the HOF. Would have been good to see how much more he could have achieved if not hobbled by injuries.

My biggest question is how players like him or Kareem would translate into todays NBA game? We'll never know of course, but an interesting thought experiment.

P.S.  Probably in the minority, but Bill needs to just put down the mic when it comes to color commentary.

[John Kirk]

Lakers vs Knicks in 72 was the second game. Seeing Pat Riley play against Phil Jackson was fun. Phil became a handsome man. Would not have seen that coming.

Yes, I stuck around and watched the first half of the Lakers - Knicks game.  Walt Frazier really stood out as an excellent player.  Wilt was physically dominant.  I think he finished the game with a 24-29-8 line.  Maybe 7 or 8 blocked shots, too.

Keith Jackson and Bill Russell were hilarious, a very good announcing team.  Their preparation seemed insufficient, just two basketball fans winging it during a big game.  Russell fascinates me to no end; he is the most interesting man in the game's history.

P.S.  Probably in the minority, but Bill needs to just put down the mic when it comes to color commentary.

I think you are in the vast majority on this one.  I don't care if I'm the lone remaining fan of Walton as a broadcaster.  He seems to have worn out his welcome with virtually every network.  If you parse through the cheerleading and clowning around, Big Bill will make the occasional sharp observation that matters.  At some level, guys like Walton (and the Jackson/Russell team) expose the superficiality of modern sports broadcasting.  A lot of it is hype, and an effort to make you believe that what you are watching is important.  Perhaps golf broadcasting is the greatest offender in this regard.  It's just a game, and the men will be back next week  (or next month) to play again.  Bill Walton sounds genuine and real, and announces with a deep love for his sport, which is one reason why he was a helluva player.

[Tom Ferrell]

In addition to his physical and mental skills as a basketball player, which both were SIGNIFICANT. don't make the Grateful Dead just a joke in this conversation.  As a lifelong Deadhead myself, I see how my experience has colored my perceptions of every element of my life, including my professional life in golf and GCA. Furthermore, his passion for the Grateful Dead holds a clue into his leadership skills and life philosophy.  While some see their outside passions and relationships as separate from their professional ones, leaders ALWAYS find connections.  To that end, Bill Walton actively involved anyone in his life in his passion for the Dead, all the way down to taking Larry Bird, McHale, and Robert Parrish to a GD show in Worcester, MA in November of 1985...


https://celticswire.usatoday.com/lists/nba-boston-celtics-saw-grateful-dead-history/


The Grateful Dead may or may not be your musical or cultural cup of tea, but for those whose tea it is (careful if you take a drink from it!), it is TRULY an integral part of life.

[Joe Bausch]

Lore also has it that Walton didn't like being called a 7footer (I think he was at least 7'1") so he was always listed at 6'11".

[Jason Thurman]

At some level, guys like Walton (and the Jackson/Russell team) expose the superficiality of modern sports broadcasting.  A lot of it is hype, and an effort to make you believe that what you are watching is important.  Perhaps golf broadcasting is the greatest offender in this regard.

Not to take this thread off-topic or anything, but this is hilariously true. My legendarily golf-hating wife has stopped objecting when I turn on random Thursday coverage of a golf tournament because she's started to find real entertainment in just how hard the commentators work to make the action sound crucially important. And it really is unique to Thursdays, because the stakes are just so low at that point in a tournament, and the viewership is low, and my theory is that the commentators start overcompensating. But if you pay attention, you'll notice that they throw their biggest words and most superfluous metaphors around, and it's just a riot to a non-golfer. She finds a quote to repeat back and laugh at about every 30 seconds, and thus will now tolerate golf on the TV for as long as 15 minutes. If it's Thursday.


Kalen, here are the definitive answers on how good the "old guys" would be if you put them into a time machine and dropped them off just in time to be drafted. Trust me, I'm 36:

• Walton: Nurkic-ish. Better if he improves his shot. Hall of Fame upside for sure. Opportunity to stay healthy more consistently with modern medicine, maybe.
• Kareem: First ballot Hall of Famer. Wins ROTY if this is a draft class.
• Russell: Borderline All-Star. Hall of Famer if you send a modern coach back in time to mentor him through his childhood so that he's prepared for the things that will change about the game after all the things he changed about the game.
• Wilt: Dwight Howard 2.0.
• Jerry West: Mini-Luka. Or Harden, but with grit. Finishes second to Kareem in ROTY.
• Elgin: Needs to learn to shoot with two hands. Kind of guy the Spurs regularly turn into a strong contributor. Elite passer with lead-ball-handling-wing-upside if he tightens his handle and improves his shooting range.
• Cousy: Third pick in the pickup game starting at the Y at 4:30.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Does anyone know if he even plays golf?


Met him twice:


Once on a UA flight from San Diego to San Francisco in 1997. I had an exit seat and he, well, did not and he was visibly uncomfortable on a small commuter jet, so I offered him my seat. He was Grateful.


The next time was at a Dead and Company show at Wrigley Field in 2019 and we walked right by me and happened to stop. I engaged him in conversation, he remembered that airplane interaction, we exchanged pleasantries and off he went into the crowd.

[John Kirk]

Like the Grateful Dead, Bill Walton is a Californian.  There as an overwhelming sense of optimism in the California I grew up in during the sixties and seventies.  Basketball is a lot like improvisational music.  You assemble a good team with a few rules for how to play, and then the team figures out to how to play best.  Professional basketball is a much looser collaboration than college basketball, where coaches exert great control over the movements of the players.  One thing the two old games showed last night is the increasing organization and coaching of the modern pro game.  Those seventies players were hardly running plays, and as a result, the play at the end of games was very disorganized.


Reading Lynn's thoughts on the two great centers reminded me of a broad generalization about West Coast and East Coast people.  East Coast people, especially around New York City, take their intellectualism far more seriously than their refugee counterparts in California.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a serious, measured man, much like the attitude of the hard bop jazz musicians he loves.  Walton is a West Coast intellectual; he does not appear to take himself too seriously, yet when he stepped between the lines to compete, he played with great intelligence.  I'm proud to have grown up in California when I did; our brand of intellectual rigor mixed with a fearlessness towards experimentation changed the world.  I love Walton because he represents the best of that lifestyle and attitude. 


Not a full blown Dead Head here, but they are the greatest band from my home area, and clearly one of the great bands of the past century.  I speak fluent Dead until about 1977.

[Greg Clark]

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is often called the greatest college basketball player of all time.


Kareem vs Bill


Passing  Bill
Defending  Bill
Rebounding  Bill
Hustle and Enthusiasm Bill
Scoring inside Kareem
Scoring outside Bill
Championships Kareem 3, Bill 2(mostly due to Bill's anomalous behavior as a senior)
Teammate off the court, like most 7 footers both are unconventional; more like Tillinghast and John Bredemus
Once late into the night at a reunion with Walton present some of us who played with Kareem were whining about him being difficult at times to play with and Walton said, "I don't like hearing these stories about Kareem."

That and David Thompson.

[Kalen Braley]

At some level, guys like Walton (and the Jackson/Russell team) expose the superficiality of modern sports broadcasting.  A lot of it is hype, and an effort to make you believe that what you are watching is important.  Perhaps golf broadcasting is the greatest offender in this regard.

Kalen, here are the definitive answers on how good the "old guys" would be if you put them into a time machine and dropped them off just in time to be drafted. Trust me, I'm 36:

• Walton: Nurkic-ish. Better if he improves his shot. Hall of Fame upside for sure. Opportunity to stay healthy more consistently with modern medicine, maybe.
• Kareem: First ballot Hall of Famer. Wins ROTY if this is a draft class.
• Russell: Borderline All-Star. Hall of Famer if you send a modern coach back in time to mentor him through his childhood so that he's prepared for the things that will change about the game after all the things he changed about the game.
• Wilt: Dwight Howard 2.0.
• Jerry West: Mini-Luka. Or Harden, but with grit. Finishes second to Kareem in ROTY.
• Elgin: Needs to learn to shoot with two hands. Kind of guy the Spurs regularly turn into a strong contributor. Elite passer with lead-ball-handling-wing-upside if he tightens his handle and improves his shooting range.
• Cousy: Third pick in the pickup game starting at the Y at 4:30.

Jason,

That's a terrific start, of which I agree mostly, especially for Bill Walton.  I doubt he makes the HOF in today's conditions, even if he'd be in the league for a long time.

Wilt is where I would disagree the most.  No doubt he played in a time where he utterly dominated with his raw athleticism and size over everyone else in the league, so its hard to compare.  I'd like to think he'd still be good enough to be ROTY in his first year, but Kareem is no slouch either, so tough to say.

[archie_struthers]

 


Great instincts, "felt" the rhythm of the game...like a great golf designer he understood flow


Fabulous outlet passer , one of best ever , got rebound and off they went


Always in position until he got hurt and lost some foot speed


totally unselfish , like Russell thought team first


great fundamentals , augmented by Wooden's teaching




thanks LYNN S

[Carl Johnson]

Why?  I remember seeing Bill playing, not in person but on TV.  Obviously he had the physical skills, but he struck me as a competitor.  So I would say "physical skills", and a competitor drive, and I'm guessing that he worked, hard, at it.  Injury struck him, a mortal, so his pro career didn't become one for the ages.  I don't like "who's the greatest" rankings, but among them at the college level Bill would be in the upper, upper echelon.

[Bill Gayne]

I'm enjoying this thread. A couple of quick thoughts:


1. Pasch and Walton work really well together broadcasting the "Conference of Champions." There's great banter but Walton turned serious during a game in 2019 and talk about suicidal thoughts he once had because the back pain was overwhelming. It gave me an appreciation for the pain and the despair and how it broke him and why he projects the positive thoughts of today.


2. College basketball was much more of a regional sport in the early 70s. Growing up in Virginia it was nothing but ACC basketball on only Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. David Thompson was the biggest star. Lefty Dreisell's stated goal was to make Maryland the UCLA of the east. At most, we probably had an opportunity to watch UCLA 2-3 times per year and that was in the NCAA tournament which only included 24 teams. If the ACC wasn't on it was going to be Kentucky or Indiana.


3. Walton won't speak about it but I wonder how he looks back on his decision to not participate in the 72 Olympics due to Wooden being snubbed as the coach.

[Peter Flory]

Walton had 39 win shares in his entire NBA career.  That's about half of what Lamar Odom had. 

For scale, Kareem had 29 win shares in a single season and 273 for his career.

[JMEvensky]

great fundamentals , augmented by Wooden's teaching




thanks LYNN S

What's up Archie?


+1 on fundamentals-- BW might be the most fundamentally sound player I ever saw; any size, any sport. I was at the Checkerdome for the Memphis State game--he was almost perfect for 40 minutes.


And definitely a +1 to Lynn S. Always fun to talk college hoops with someone who has his perspective.

[David_Elvins]

Walton had 39 win shares in his entire NBA career.  That's about half of what Lamar Odom had. 

For scale, Kareem had 29 win shares in a single season and 273 for his career.

Sure,  Walton and Kareem had both won a finals mvp and regular season mvp by age 24.  Then Walton basically never played again whilst Kareem almost played another 20 seasons.  So of course Kareem is going to accumulate more winshares.

[JESII]

What is a winshare?

[David_Elvins]

What is a winshare?

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

[JESII]

Thanks David

[Jason Thurman]

And definitely a +1 to Lynn S. Always fun to talk college hoops with someone who has his perspective.

Add a +1.


Basketball literature is 100% a genre now, with dozens of seminal works. Lynn is a recurring character who regularly pops up in the corners, so to speak. I'm humbled whenever he shows up around here and dispenses real knowledge, briefly and without a hint of pretense. It sure casts all my wordy bullshit into very stark relief.

[JMEvensky]

Lynn is a recurring character who regularly pops up in the corners, so to speak.

Nice.

[Ted Sturges]

On March 26, 1973, Walton went 21-22 from the field and scored 44 points in the NCAA championship game victory over Memphis State.  I believe he had 4 buckets nullified that night due to being called for offensive goal tending (dunking was not allowed in 1973).  So yeah...he was pretty good.  Of course, being an Indiana fan, I will never be convinced that Steve Downing's blocking foul (his 5th) shouldn't have been Walton's 5th (he definitely charged), which would likely have given that semi-final game to IU (Quinn Buckner's freshman season).  Walton and Buckner would later be teammates on the Celtics (along with a pretty good player named Larry Bird...also from the great state of Indiana).


To Lynn Shackelford:   You told us a great Wooden story one night at Apache Stronghold.  Would love to hear it again.  As I recall, you and Kareem were on the freshman team and could not play varsity.  The freshman team trounced the varsity in a pre-season scrimmage (and the varsity ended up being national champions)...but the varsity was the second best team on campus.  I believe you said Coach Wooden stopped having that pre-season scrimmage because it killed the varsity team's confidence (I think that team stumbled out of the gate to start the season until they regained their confidence).  Would love to hear you (Lynn) provide those details again.


TS

[Jeff Schley]

Can't both Walton and Kareem be great? I think yes, which had the better pro career is obvious so going back to college when each had great careers is an interesting discussion. I was at UCLA coaching another sport and saw John Wooden often, talked with him numerous times as he always sat in the same spot to watch UCLA home games. Very kind gentlemen and giving in almost every way.
He gave a talk to the athletic department coaches once and mentioned that Alcindor was the most dominant and most valuable player he has ever coached. Although he did say Bill Walton was the most well rounded. I respect Walton and of course his injuries leave his pro career as a "what if" scenario, however we don't have to wonder about any what if's with KAJ as he fulfilled his potential and lasted longer than almost any other NBA player. Great career and one of the best 5 players of all time, he earned it.

I found this from an LA Times article:

“He is the most valuable college player of all time,” Wooden said. “No one else dominated three consecutive years like he did to win the NCAA (every year).
"(Bill) Russell won it twice, but you hardly knew much about Russell in his first year at USF. And (Wilt) Chamberlain, of course, played only two years at Kansas. (Jerry) Lucas wasn’t nearly the same height and that group (at Ohio State), which was supposed to win three championships, won one.
“I have said that, if you took all the fundamentals of both offense and defense and graded (both players) on a one-to-10 basis, Bill Walton probably would have outscored (Alcindor). But I still say Lewis was the most valuable. I’d say he was a bigger problem for the opposing team, both offensively and defensively.”
 

[Peter Flory]

Walton had 39 win shares in his entire NBA career.  That's about half of what Lamar Odom had. 

For scale, Kareem had 29 win shares in a single season and 273 for his career.

Sure,  Walton and Kareem had both won a finals mvp and regular season mvp by age 24.  Then Walton basically never played again whilst Kareem almost played another 20 seasons.  So of course Kareem is going to accumulate more winshares.

I'm not arguing that Walton wasn't good, just that his stats and production are among the lowest for any Hall of Fame player and for an MVP.  And I'm sure that if he could have avoided injury, he would have had a much more productive career- but he didn't.  He had 37 orthopedic operations I believe.   


In the 1978 season, Kareem's WS per minute lead over Walton was the same as Walton's lead over Cowen's, who was 21st in the league.  Walton just got the MVP because his team's record was better.  How can you be the MVP if you miss 30% of the games?  Walton was 3rd on his team in points that season due to all the games that he missed.  Walton only had 1.3 WS more than his own teammate- Bob Gross. 

[Lynn_Shackelford]

On March 26, 1973, Walton went 21-22 from the field and scored 44 points in the NCAA championship game victory over Memphis State.  I believe he had 4 buckets nullified that night due to being called for offensive goal tending (dunking was not allowed in 1973).  So yeah...he was pretty good.  Of course, being an Indiana fan, I will never be convinced that Steve Downing's blocking foul (his 5th) shouldn't have been Walton's 5th (he definitely charged), which would likely have given that semi-final game to IU (Quinn Buckner's freshman season).  Walton and Buckner would later be teammates on the Celtics (along with a pretty good player named Larry Bird...also from the great state of Indiana).


To Lynn Shackelford:   You told us a great Wooden story one night at Apache Stronghold.  Would love to hear it again.  As I recall, you and Kareem were on the freshman team and could not play varsity.  The freshman team trounced the varsity in a pre-season scrimmage (and the varsity ended up being national champions)...but the varsity was the second best team on campus.  I believe you said Coach Wooden stopped having that pre-season scrimmage because it killed the varsity team's confidence (I think that team stumbled out of the gate to start the season until they regained their confidence).  Would love to hear you (Lynn) provide those details again.


TS

A couple of thoughts.  I appreciate the kind remarks about the old days at UCLA.  I didn't realize that Bobby Knight took on Walton's team in their heyday.  His strategy employed and what he did to prep would be a great story.  In a 7 game series UCLA would probably win in 5 or 6 against IU, but Knight was a great one game coach when given the prep time.
I agree that Wooden has a great way to avoid the question of who is better Walton or Kareem.  Walton did have more basketball skills, and Kareem was always there in the big moments and won more championships. 
I wonder about Walton's vegetarian diet in his formative years that might have contributed to his fragility.  Off the court and out of the classroom he was basically a hippie on a bicycle.
The two most cerebral teams I ever watched in the NBA were the Knicks in the early 70's and Walton's Portland team's short run of dominance in the late 70's.  One night Walton was having a great game and dominating Kareem, during a timeout announcer Chick Hearn turned to me and said, "is it me or is Walton making Kareem look old and slow?"
I agree, why can't both be great, like Russell and Wilt, Oscar and Jerry, Magic and Larry, Lebron and Michael.
In 1965 the long awaited Pauley Pavilion was to open and it was decided what better way than to continue the tradition of the annual preseason Varsity vs Freshmen game.  It had be played for years as a mechanism to raise a few hundred dollars for a recruiting budget.  Wooden went along thinking the 18 year old freshmen would panic under the bright lights.  With 4 high school All Americans, Shackelford, Alcindor, Lucius Allen and Ken Heitz, a sellout crowd and local TV, we easily prevailed 75-60.  The varsity had been a pre season No. 1 pick coming off two championships in 64 and 65.  After the game with us celebrating down the hall in our locker room, Wooden paced the floor in the varsity locker room which was deadly quiet and embarrassed.  Trying to muster up something to say, in typical Wooden fashion, he stopped pacing, looked and said, "well it looks like we are going to be pretty good next year."