The late Bill Walton has a unique presence in basketball history. When healthy, he was as good as any center who ever played, and, with the possible exception of Arvydas Sabonis, the best passing center in history.
But injuries caused huge disruptions in his NBA career. He won a championship with Portland in 1977, and after his injury years, came to Boston as a sixth man and helped the ’86 Celtics become perhaps the best team in NBA history.
His place in history is secure though, because Walton’s career, as disrupted as it was, revealed a man who deeply loved the game, and most of all, the players who played it right.
This video has tells of AI, and clearly it synthesized his voice. However, the words seem to be Walton’s, and he lists the five college players he admired most. And the list makes perfect sense for Walton’s priorities:
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Lew Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
He picked Russell for his far-sighted intelligence and for putting winning and the team first.
He favored Alcindor/Kareem for his calm nature and how composed he always was on the court.
He said Maravich was on the list because he imagined a new version of basketball years ahead of its time, yet was still a team player in spite of his statistical dominance.
As for Robertson, what separated him was the way he controlled every aspect of the game. He had size at point guard for his day, vision and poise. Walton said what he admired most was his overall command of the game.
Finally, he talked about his eventual Celtics teammate Larry Bird, saying that he was one of the greatest basketball minds he’d ever witnessed. Bird, he said, never forced a game to revolve around him. The quality he said he admired most was Bird’s immense confidence.
As noted, it’s an AI voice, but the comments, it seems to us, are hugely Waltonesque.
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