Two-time NBA champion Bill Walton dead at 71

The Hall of Famer started a career as a broadcaster after he finished playing.

TFD – NBA Hall of Famer and two-time champion Bill Walton has passed away at 71 after a prolonged battle with cancer. Known for his dominance on the court and his colorful commentary off it, Walton’s legacy in basketball and broadcasting will be fondly remembered.

After a “prolonged battle with cancer,” the league stated on Monday, two-time NBA champion Bill Walton passed away. Walton was a dominant player on the hard court during his 13-year pro basketball career. Later, he thrived as a commentator, delighting and frightening sports fans with his often crazy color commentary.

Walton, 71, passed away while surrounded by his loved ones, according to a statement from NBA spokesman Mark Broussard.

“In a statement, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that Bill Walton was a true unique individual.” “As a Hall of Fame player, he redefined the center position.”

In addition to winning an NBA championship with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977, Walton also won another NBA championship in 1986 while playing for the Boston Celtics.

And after a 13-year career on the hardwood, Walton “translated his infectious enthusiasm and love for the game to broadcasting, where he delivered insightful and colorful commentary which entertained generations of basketball fans,” Silver said.

Walton, who was born in La Mesa, California, on November 5, 1952, was a 6-11 basketball star in high school before joining the UCLA Bruins to play for head coach John Wooden.

Walton chose not to compete despite being chosen for the 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball team.

Walton’s vocal criticism of the Vietnam War, the Nixon government, and the FBI made him one of the nation’s most divisive athletes off the court. In his junior year, he was even detained at a protest against war.

Walton also broke the mold for what a college athlete should look like with his shock of flame red hair and flannel shirts. He declared himself a vegetarian, practiced meditation and became a lifelong fan of The Grateful Dead.

“Your generation has screwed up the world,” he said in a statement after his arrest. “My generation is trying to straighten it out. Money doesn’t mean anything to me. It can’t buy happiness, and I just want to be happy.”

Pursuing an NBA career required being OK with Walton.

Selected as the first overall pick in the 1974 NBA draft, he led the Trail Blazers to a championship three years later and also won the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award.

Walton was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 1978.

But Walton suffered from foot and leg ailments that plagued him from high school onward, forcing him to play through the pain for the duration of his career. Due to injuries that took roughly thirty-six surgeries to heal, he missed three seasons of football.

Walton participated in just 10 games during the 1986–1987 season before retiring at the age of 34.

In his autobiography, he wrote that his biggest regret was playing hurt.

“I didn’t let pain be my guide,” Walton wrote. “I didn’t say, ‘If it hurt a lot, don’t play.'”

Walton was a stutterer, but he overcame it to become one of the most well-known and occasionally contentious basketball analysts in the nation.

Walton called games for Turner Sports, ESPN, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and, most recently, ESPN’s Pac-12 basketball broadcasts. He won an Emmy for best live sports television broadcast in 2001.

He amassed a library of bizarre sayings along the way, some of which were posted online by a group known as Horrible Announcing.

“Come on, that was no foul,” Walton once declared midgame. “It may be a violation of all the basic rules of human decency, but it’s not a foul.”

A player was once compared by Walton as an insect.

“If you ever think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never spent a night in bed with a mosquito or you’ve never played basketball against Taylor from Utah — No. 11 in your program, No. 1 in your heart.”

Walton had a tendency to exaggerate his compliments. As an illustration:

“John Stockton is one of the great marvels of Western civilization’s history, not just of basketball or America!”

In 2015, Walton asked a thought-provoking question during a live broadcast of another college game: “Have you ever been milked?”

According to the NBA, he is survived by his previous marriage’s sons, Adam, Luke, Nate, and Chris, as well as his second wife, Lori.