NBA 75: At No. 64, Bill Waltons injury-plagued career couldnt obscure his greatness

June 06, 2024

Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic’s countdown of the 75 best players in NBA history, in honor of the league’s diamond anniversary. From Nov. 1 through Feb. 18, we’ll unveil a new player on the list every weekday except for Dec. 27-31, culminating with the man picked by a panel of The Athletic NBA staff members as the greatest of all time.

Bill Walton did not want to be interviewed for The Athletic’s Top 75 project.

He says he was a team guy. The list is about individuals.

“Bill not wanting to do that because of his idea of team, that pretty much sums him up, to a T,” said Dave Twardzik, who played guard alongside Walton on the Trail Blazers’ 1977 title team. “The beauty of our title team was we all sacrificed individual stats for the sum of the team, and nobody did that more than Bill.

“He certainly could have scored more, played more differently than he did, but he was extremely unselfish. He could have been the best passing center to maybe ever play.”

Walton was the NBA Finals MVP in 1977 and the NBA MVP in 1978 despite playing only 58 games. He also helped Boston win the 1986 title while being named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year. But perhaps the most telling statistic in his career was the 30 surgeries to his ankles, feet, legs and hands. All told, he missed 762 games to injury over his career.

“My legs were pretty much shot by the time I got to the NBA in 1974,” Walton wrote in his autobiography, “Nothing But Net.” “I peaked when I was 12.”

When he did play, Walton was dominant, largely because of his versatility, which was best illustrated during the 1977 NBA Finals, when he averaged 18.5 points, 19 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 3.7 blocks against Philadelphia. In the clinching Game 6, Walton had 20 points, 23 rebounds, seven assists and eight blocks.

Danny Ainge, who would later become Walton’s teammate in Boston, grew up two hours south of Portland in Eugene. In 1977, he was a senior in high school and remembers listening to Walton’s games on the radio.

“I still say his 1977 season was one of the best individual seasons ever,” Ainge said.

Walton credited his passing skills to coach John Wooden, who, during his freshman season at UCLA, put Walton in the high post and told him to stay there. Walton became frustrated that all he was doing was passing and setting screens. He grumbled to Wooden, who “would have none of my complaints,” Walton wrote.

“I didn’t believe it at the time, but it turned out that playing the high post that entire freshman season was the best thing in the world for me,” Walton wrote. “It allowed me to develop skills that I would need as I moved up to each new level of competition. …

“Later, when I found myself matched against the tallest players in the game, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Artis Gilmore or Ralph Sampson, I could step out to the perimeter, forcing them to come guard me. More times than not, that opened passing lanes for others to score.”

In his rookie season, Walton faced off against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the Milwaukee Arena. (Vernon Biever / NBAE via Getty Images)

The season after winning the title, Portland looked primed to defend, racing to a 50-10 record. Walton was at the peak of his excellence, averaging 18.9 points, 13.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 2.5 blocks. But in February, his troublesome left foot sidelined him, and when he came back in the playoffs, playing on painkillers, his foot broke and he never played for Portland again.

Walton wrote that his biggest regret was playing hurt.

“I didn’t let pain be my guide,” Walton wrote. “I didn’t say, if it hurts a lot, don’t play.”

Added Twardzik: “The real shame is he could have been one of the greatest to ever play had he stayed healthy.”

After missing the 1978-79 season with injury, Walton spent six injury-plagued seasons with the San Diego/Los Angeles Clippers, where he played 169 total games.

But Walton’s story had a triumphant finish.

In 1985 he was traded to Boston, where he accepted a role off the bench and became a key cog to one of the best teams in NBA history. He played 80 of 82 regular-season games and 16 of the team’s 18 playoff games. During the regular season, he averaged 19 minutes a game and produced 7.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists. He was voted the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year, beating out Milwaukee’s Ricky Pierce and Sacramento’s Eddie Johnson.

“He was a huge, uplifting guy for us,” Ainge said. “At that time, he was all about winning, and he brought a lot to us. He only played 19 minutes a game, but they were an impactful 19 minutes.”

Walton called the 1985-86 season “my greatest personal playing accomplishment.”

“I never had a better time playing,” Walton wrote. “Aside from winning, my favorite moments on the court came when I was out there with Larry Bird. It’s safe to say our playing styles were complementary.”

He might have been older in Boston, but he still had the mind and vision to impact the game.

“Larry (Bird), Kevin (McHale) and I all had such great admiration for him,” Ainge said. “He had this great brain for the game, and he was very unselfish. He was a great — not good, but great — passer. He was just a huge lift for us.”

Walton, here dunking in the 1986 NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets, was named NBA Sixth Man of the Year during that championship season. (Dick Raphael / NBAE via Getty Images)

He would play only 10 games the next season because of injury, ending his career.

His No. 32 is retired in Portland, and although he left on bad terms — accusing the medical staff of malpractice — he has since mended his relationship with the franchise and is widely celebrated as the man who helped deliver Portland its only title. The reverence for that championship team stems not just because they won the title, but how they did it: with teamwork and unselfishness.

In August 2019, he returned to Portland to help the Blazers start their 50th–season celebration:

The Blazers this season want to reconnect with their past, rekindle that bond that took hold in 1977, and reach a new set of fans who were perhaps turned off by the franchise’s dark days of player misbehavior and poor play in the early 2000s. The organization is once again stable, led by an iconic backcourt, a beloved coach and some promising youngsters.

So who better to represent the ups and downs of the franchise, and to promote the promising future than Walton, its most decorated and perhaps most evolved player?

As Walton notes, he is in roughly the 20th reincarnation of his life. Now 66, he has become a popular television analyst and, more than anything, an overflowing optimist who wants to spread peace, love and harmony.

“What a wonderful team that was,” Walton wrote. “We played so well together and understood exactly what had to be done to win.”

And Twardzik said nobody epitomized that unselfishness more than Walton.

“His first priority was not to score, even though he was our best player,” Twardzik said. “His first priority was to pass. And his basketball IQ was off the charts. Like, a lot of guys are good passers in practice, but come the game, not so much. Bill was a good passer because he was a willing passer. His first option was to look for cutters, and everybody on our team benefited from that. He made everybody better.”

To hear Twardzik say that would be music to Walton’s ears.

“The nicest thing that people ever said about me as a player was that I made the players around me perform better,” Walton wrote. “To me, there’s no more meaningful comment.”

Walton was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1993, and Twardzik says there is no question Walton belongs on The Athletic’s Top 75 list.

“When he was right, I think he was the best center playing the game, and that was at the time when Kareem was playing, too,” Twardzik said. “There’s an old saying: You never know a guy until you coach or play with him. Well, playing with Bill was a joy because he played the right way.”

Best he has ever played with?

“Well, I played with Julius Erving and George Gervin, who are both in the Hall of Fame,” Twardzik said. “And Bill would be the best.”

Career stats: G: 468, Pts.: 13.3, Reb.: 10.5, Ast.: 3.4, FG%: 52.1, FT%: 66.0, Win Shares: 39.3, PER: 20.0

The Athletic NBA 75 Panel points: 163 | Hollinger GOAT Points*: 69.3

Achievements: Two-time All-NBA; two-time All-Star; Finals MVP (’77), NBA MVP (’78), Rebounding, blocks leader (’77), NBA title (’77, ’86), Hall of Fame (’93); NBA at 50 (’96); NBA 75 team (’21)

*A rating of a player’s accumulated accomplishments at the highest levels, based mostly on comparable historical factors, determined heavily but not completely by contemporary evaluations (i.e. awards and All-Star selections). Emphasis is given to the most outstanding achievements — MVP award shares, All-NBA teams, and production above and beyond what is typically an All-Star level.

(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; Photo: Associated Press)

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