“Things turn out the best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
–John Wooden
It’s late November 2007, and Bill Walton’s trademark upbeat
mood has turned decidedly melancholy.
“That’s the one I can’t read. It’s too close,” he sighs. “It’s
too close.”
As those sentences linger in the air, Walton is finishing up
an hour-long interview on Bill Simmons’ “B.S. Report” podcast.
Simmons had brought up David Halberstam’s The Breaks of the Game, a legendary book
that chronicled the late ‘70’s Portland Trail Blazers as their dominance was curtailed
only by a string of terrible luck. Really, though, the book is about Bill
Walton. Halberstam describes an athlete in tune with the essence of the game. A
player who learned how to pass, cut, and play team basketball from John Wooden.
An NBA champion and league MVP who carried coach Jack Ramsey’s Portland teams
on his back until his body completely betrayed him at 25.
When Walton injured his foot during the ’77-’78 season ,
Portland was 50 and 10. The foot injury was serious, and Walton was done for
the regular season. In hindsight, Portland also should have shut him down for
the playoffs. Perhaps in 2013, with star players making tens of millions, they
would have. But, this was 1978 and the Blazers were trying to repeat as
champions. By Halberstam’s account, Walton agreed to take some painkilling
shots, and give it a go as the playoffs began. He made it two games before his
foot shattered. Walton would never put on a Trail Blazers uniform again.
From then on, Walton would spend the rest of his career in both San Diego and Boston fighting just to suit up. The story of Bill Walton is not so dissimilar to the
story of Yao Ming, a sublimely skilled big man cut down in his prime by foot
injuries. The question, “What if?”—spoken or unspoken—sucks oxygen from the
room whenever such names are mentioned.
While Halberstam’s Breaks
focuses mainly on Walton’s Blazers years, Simmons’ own writing picks up the
story a few years later and on the other side of the country in Boston. Though
Walton’s body never fully cooperated through his stint with the Clippers, he
had a last-gasp season with the ’85-’86 Celtics, willing his body to play 20
minutes a night for 80 games plus the playoffs. That Celtics squad—also
featuring Bird, McHale, Ainge, D.J., and Parish— is widely considered one of
the top five teams of all time. Simmons has written at length about the way
Walton played the game—the perfect outlet passes, the deft cuts to the basket,
and all of the other little things that help great teams become legendary. The
body had failed him, but Walton’s court vision was as sharp as ever on that
Celtics team.
Maybe Simmons thought that Walton’s championship with the
Celtics would have erased some scars from his frustrating career. After all, as
Jackie MacMullan described in When the
Game Was Ours, Walton had spent the night after the championship in Larry
Bird’s kitchen, listening to the Grateful Dead and drinking Wild Turkey. When
Bird awoke the next morning, he found Walton in the kitchen, still unable to
sleep. Winning that title clearly meant the world to Walton. But, as Simmons
turned the conversation to The Breaks of
the Game, it was clear that Walton’s Portland scars are there for life,
just under the surface, masked only by his larger than life personality.
“I tried to read it six or seven times and every time I
can’t get past page two. It’s just so sad because that was such a perfect team,
and that was my life, and it all came crumbling down.”
“Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”
–John Wooden
For aging professional athletes, the body betraying the
brain has to cut deeper than any other challenge. Sure, the extra time spent
icing knees and rehabbing nagging injuries must be a frustrating experience,
but the changes on the court must present the biggest shock to the system. The
game looks the same and plays to be made are still popping up just as often,
but the body suddenly refuses to cooperate, and opportunities are missed at an ever higher rate.
Now, imagine never truly having the body in the first place.
For Luke Walton, the game has always been more chess than
checkers. Even at his youngest and healthiest, Luke was never an athletic
specimen. Yet, there he was year after year getting minutes on Phil Jackson’s
Lakers teams, as outsiders scoffed (and a young Luke Harangody dreamed). It's easy to watch Luke play for a few minutes and contemplate Jackson's sanity. The longer you watch him, though, the more that the familiar subtleties Jackson recognized become apparent.
With pedestrian career numbers, Luke’s lineage as Bill
Walton’s son is probably the main trait that makes him more than just another
NBA footnote. But, while his last name
may have initially turned heads, it is the game that Bill passed down to Luke
that caught Phil Jackson’s and now Byron Scott’s attention over the past
decade. Luke shares his father’s court vision and his knack for making the
right basketball play. He also shares his father’s fragility, with a chronic
back injury severely limiting Luke over the years.
As Luke Walton’s career inches closer and closer to
completion—and make no mistake, there’s not much time left—it’s hard to think
of a better father for him to have through this journey than Bill. While Luke’s
game never approached his father’s MVP level, both share the frustration and
disappointment that comes along with chronic injury. Perhaps Bill regularly
discusses with Luke how to mentally cope with injury, or perhaps neither is
comfortable broaching the subject. Maybe, it’s still too close.
“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
–John Wooden
While Luke Walton has taken extensive flak from Cavaliers
fans for his physical limitations, games like Tuesday night’s surprising win
over the Chicago Bulls—without Kyrie Irving, no less—show why Phil and Byron
have believed in Luke for so long. With eight points, five rebounds, five
assists, and one late steal that clinched the win,[1] Luke’s
fingerprints were all over the victory. The extra passes were made, the well
timed back cuts were rewarded, and the picks always arrived exactly on time.
But, given enough time on the court—call it exposure—or
faced with an athletic enough defender, Luke Walton makes the kind of mistakes
that have Cavs fans reaching for a Dortmunder Gold. He’s never shot
particularly well from the field, and his defensive effort and effectiveness unfortunately
sit on opposite ends of the spectrum. But, what’s most impressive and at the
same time most depressing is that Walton often errs in attempting to make a
great basketball play. Luke’s sees the game as Rondo but plays with the body of
Scalabrine. As Christopher Walken once explained to a young Bradley Cooper in Wedding Crashers, in the battle of
nature versus nurture, nature always wins.
There will be no modern day The Breaks of the Game for Luke Walton. His time in Cleveland will
probably be described as utterly forgettable in NBA history books. Hell, it
probably won’t be described at all unless he’s quoted discussing a young Kyrie
Irving. He was salary cap ballast in a trade that helped the Cavs eventually
land Tyler Zeller, and his back is so bad that he contemplated retirement
before ever putting on the wine and gold. But, for those that follow the
Cavaliers closely for all 82, Luke is a fascinating player. He might be the worst
player in the NBA who could still put together an awesome highlight tape (or Fundamentals Montage,
for that matter).
When his back loosens up for a night and he captures
lightning in a bottle, Luke Walton shows glimpses of what once was and what
might have been. Had his body cooperated, he could have been a poor man’s Paul
Pierce for a decade, getting minutes and filling up the box score on championship-caliber
teams. As it was, injuries progressively lessened his role across the Lakers
three straight NBA Finals appearances in the late ‘00’s.[2] Or maybe
it’s a waste of time to even consider an alternate reality—just another “What
if?” Does the disappointment of a limited prime have to tarnish the memory of
the moment of accomplishment?
On nights like Tuesday, it’s not hard to imagine Bill
watching at home, beaming with pride, spilling salsa on his tie-died shirt as
Luke dives for a clutch steal. Maybe on nights like these, Luke helps to fade
Bill’s scars. But, it’s also not hard to imagine Bill watching his son play quietly,
as his thoughts inevitably drift first to that ’86 Celtics team and then, like
a runaway train, back to those late ‘70’s Portland teams.
It would be a shame if Bill Walton never fully comes to
terms with his time in Portland. There’s sadness under the surface for Bill
that hurts as a fan to see when it’s uncovered. It’s an unfortunate trait of
mankind’s that regret too often overshadows success in our memories.
As a Cavaliers fan, Tuesday night was flat out fun. Never
mind that Kyrie’s knee is now a source of anxiety. Forget that on Sunday Cavs
fans were reminded just how good it is when LeBron James is on your team. On Tuesday
night, it wasn’t even important that Chicago was 13 games ahead of Cleveland in
the standings. Sometimes, context must be damned. Nothing else matters but embracing
the moment.
And in that moment, Luke Walton played like nothing else
mattered to him.
I hope Bill gets that salsa stain out of his t-shirt.
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