Larry Joe Bird is Indiana, son of a small-town restaurant employee, dropout from the major state university because he found it too big and fast. Married as a teenager and later divorced. Worked on a garbage truck before finally winding up at a smaller state school.
William Theodore Walton is California, son of a college-educated social worker, arrested during campus antiwar protests, questioned by the FBI in the Patty Hearst kidnaping, played drums with the Grateful Dead in Egypt. Climbed 300-foot trees in the Philippines to photograph baby eagles, ate little besides sprouts and granola, advocated, in his words, rejection of the U.S. government and was graduated from a major state university.
So it was with some sense of anticipation with which Boston Celtic coach K.C. Jones awaited the meeting of these diverse personalities, the kid who grew plants and the one who ingested them. Jones remembers the moment fondly.
It was an early-season practice and Bird, 29, wandered over to Walton, 33, examined the 6-foot-11-inch, 240-pound redhead whose looks, not actions, reminded many of Huckleberry Finn, and asked, ”Hey, where`s your pony tail?” Walton smiled, Bird chuckled and Jones was satisfied the Celtics had added someone who would not upset his team`s chemistry but, instead, would help give it the depth missing last year to overtake the champion Lakers this season.
”When they can joke around like that, it`s the sign of a healthy team,” says Jones. ”With this team, you`re welcome if you can earn it.”
And Walton has, especially in the last week when he has played possibly his best basketball since 1978. First he scored 11 points, grabbed 8 rebounds and blocked 7 shots in an emotional, fist-waving performance to help the Celtics to a victory over the Lakers and then collected 19 points and 13 rebounds to help beat the 76ers.
The efforts, both in his usual limited playing time (he`s averaging 18 minutes per game), helped lift the Celtics, who play the Bulls Thursday, to a 33-8 record, best in the NBA. And they`ve lifted the spirits of the man who five years ago conceded his basketball career was over.
”Playing with the Celtics is playing basketball at its finest,” Walton says. ”The Celtics play basketball the way it should be played. It`s better than I hoped it would be.”
And Jones is not unhappy, either. Although Walton is averaging just 6.7 points and 6 rebounds, the oft-injured center has not missed a practice or game due to injury, allowing Jones to give center Robert Parish needed rest. And he`s playing with the vivacity that had been lost in a welter of operations and poor seasons.
”The opportunity for ultimate success has brought out a new life for Bill,” observes Los Angeles Clippers` general manager Carl Scheer, who traded Walton for Cedric Maxwell. ”He`s playing with enthusiasm again.”
That is the way Walton used to play the game, before a losing team and a series of foot operations dulled his ardor for basketball. Through 1983, he had an operation or cast on every summer for seven years.
Walton`s competitiveness was legend around the NBA, like when he skipped all the championship parties after he led the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA title in 1977 and, instead, joined the Knicks` Phil Jackson at an Indian reservation and in the pick-up games with the youths knocked players over like it was the seventh game of the championship finals.
”He`s a guy who hates to lose,” Jones says. ”And you can underline that 12 times. In practice he`s yelling, cursing about fouls. He doesn`t want the white (second) team to lose.”
Indeed, Walton never got accustomed to losing. His high school team won 49 straight games, and after he`d led UCLA to two national championships he spurned a big money offer from the American Basketball Association to sign with the Trail Blazers because his competitiveness demanded playing against the best.
He was a consummate team player, seeing the entire court as few other players did, blocking shots, rebounding and shooting only when necessary.
But in his first pro season he missed 35 games with an assortment of injuries (he would eventually suffer stress fractures five times), was accused of malingering and offended many with his offbeat lifestyle.
Walton never played more than 65 games in a season for the Trail Blazers, but he led them to the title in 1977 and, during the next season, when he was voted MVP despite missing 24 games, they were 50-10 when he injured his problem left foot and was lost for the season.
While some were calling him the best center to play the game, he was calling the Trail Blazers` physicians butchers. He sued, signed with the Clippers for seven years, missed three of the next four seasons with injuries (playing just 14 games in the other season) and in 1981 said his only hope in life was to ”throw a Frisbee without pain and play basketball with my sons.”
But Walton`s love for the game and competition drove him back. He left Stanford Law School and returned to the Clippers and played 33 games during the 1982-83 season, 55 the next and a career-high 67 last season.
But he often alienated teammates, at first by playing just once or twice a week, and last season by missing practice regularly, all the while continuing to scream at teammates and order them around on the floor like a coach.
”Bill really wants to win, and he gets discouraged easily,” Scheer says. ”The team surrounding him was not as talented as the Celtics. When the team floundered, he got despondent.”
So after Walton`s contract expired last year, he attempted to exercise the option he had of working out his own trade. He contacted the Lakers and Boston and, while he could not make a deal, those talks led to the Maxwell trade.
But initially, Walton was inconsistent.
”He seemed a step slow and out of sync,” says Bull center Jawann Oldham, recalling the 5 points and 4 rebounds Walton accumulated in two unimpressive games last month against the Bulls.
”It was a question of his getting used to his teammates,” Jones says. Nevertheless, Walton`s skills had diminished, but that has become less evident with a team like the Celtics.
`He doesn`t have much of an offensive game anymore,” says Scheer. ”But the Celtics allow him to do what he can still do–rebound, pass and block shots.”
And he has learned to accept the loss not only of skills but of playing time.
”I enjoy coming off the bench,” Walton says. ”I feel my primary role is to anchor the team defense, control the boards, increase the tempo of the game and provide relief to guys like (Kevin) McHale and Parish.”
But sometimes the situation dictates fewer lineup changes, and Walton sits on the bench.
”One time when I played him about 13 minutes,” Jones recalls, ”he came to me and said, `Coach, I don`t want to lose my job. If you`re mad at me, let me know.` I told him I wasn`t and he understood. I think he`s really enjoying it.”
”Even the foot is fine,” beams Walton, who says playing before the sellout crowds in Boston is like being back at UCLA. ”I`m loving every minute of it.”
”Why shouldn`t he?” needles Bird. ”He`s been on a seven-year losing streak.”
