How can you not love Bill Walton...

[cuseattle]

Kareem was a better offensive player than Walton, his equal on the boards, maybe a bit better defensively, but was not the passer that Walton was. Walton would draw Alcindor out to the foul line defensively and then throw back-door passes. Walton was an old-school Princeton style center, the best of those there ever was. And he threw really great outlet passes to run the fast break. His UCLA and Portland teams ran like greyhounds. Alcindor's teams were more half-court oriented on offense. Both great players, just a bit different.

I would love to see the scrimmages.
Both are great. I wish Kareem could teach just one kid that baby skyhook the way he did it.

 

[Flacusian]

This is what the late, great Jack Ramsey said about Walton following Portland's 4 - 2 win in the 1977 NBA finals over Dr. J and the 76ers:
"I've never coached a better player. I've never coached a better competitor. And I've never coached a better person than Bill Walton.”
BTW, in the deciding game 6, Walton had 20 pts, 23 boards, 7 assts and 8 blocks. He was only the best combo center in scoring, rebounding, assists and blocks to come along after Russell and probably the best ever in college.

If you're so sure he acted like an a-hole in his playing days (btw, as a Cali guy, I saw him many, many times at UCLA and in Portland), you're saying you knew him personally and as a player better than Dr. Jack?
IMHO, the fact that he has off-the-wall interests outside of basketball makes him far more interesting than the yelling, same old/same old analysts who do most college games as though they've never ventured outside of a gym in their lives.

If memory serves, Russell was an NBA analyst for a while on TV and I seem to remember him regularly going off on a tangent, telling all kinds of long stories about things that interested him outside of basketball. Guess you haven't liked Raftery's bar stories or the late Al McGuire's motorcycle tales either.

If you're a baseball fan of a certain age you must also have hated Ralph Kiner, Red Barber, Jack Brickhouse, Russ Hodges, Hank Greenwald and a slew of others, all of whom, while not ex-players, went off telling tales during the game for long periods of time that had absolutely nothing to do with baseball. Gotta put Casey Stengel in the same bucket. How about Phil Rizzuto--hated the story-telling Scooter, too? What about boxing legend Don Dunphy, one of the greatest tangent guys ever?

Walton makes me laugh just like those baseball guys did. He's curious about a lot of things. He celebrates the game enthusiastically. The game's supposed to be fun, right, not life and death. And, I'm guessing that unless you hung out with Walton you have absolutely no idea what his personality was as a person or as a player. None of us do.

^^^^^^^
like this 10,000 X

Walton is what is missing from so so many other commentators and that's a sense of loving life and having fun. Perhaps people hate him because he is a tree hugging member of the pot smoking / Grateful Dead loving / Ken Keysey/ Electric Kool aid drinking / liberal leaning beanpole who was hugely successful as both a college and pro player. SMH.
It's a game... it should be fun.