BOSTON — Bill Walton played with a lot of great players at UCLA, and in the NBA with the Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics. But one player stands above the rest in the Hall of Fame center’s eyes.
“Larry (Bird) was the best player I ever played with,” Walton said Tuesday at the Liberty Hotel, where the Celtics celebrated the franchise’s 1966, 1976 and 1986 NBA championship teams.
Walton, with eyes wide open and a smile on his face, recalled what made Larry Legend so amazing.
“Larry was so wonderful as a basketball player,” Walton gushed. “He was Mozart, he was Michelangelo, he was Steve Jobs. He did things that I never saw anybody do. He played at such a high level mentally.
“Larry loves to portray himself as the ‘hick from French Lick,’ but nothing could be further from the truth. The guy is an absolute genius. What he was able to do in terms of leading the team, bringing us together, then always delivering.
“Larry loved nothing more than to throw 50 in your face every single day, and he never got tired of it. He could do it in an unlimited number of ways.”
Walton teamed up with Bird after the veteran center was traded from the Los Angeles Clippers to the Celtics before the 1985-86 campaign.
Bird scored 50 points once during that season. It came on the road against the Dallas Mavericks on March 10, 1986. Boston actually lost by one point, but it won the next 14 games.
Bird also scored 40 or more points five times and 30 or more 15 times. He finished the regular season averaging 25.8 points and took home his third consecutive league MVP award, in addition to winning the NBA Finals MVP.
From a passing standpoint, no duo has been better than Walton and Bird. They had an almost telepathic sense about where each other would go on the court and the precise time to pass the ball. It was basketball in art form.
They made each other better, and it was a shame their time together only lasted a little more than one season.
Thumbnail photo via Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports Images
