Frank Thomas

Walton Notable Sports Figures
Career Statistics
Angeles. Injury kept Walton out of play for most of his
first two seasons with the Clippers, drawing widespread
criticism from San Diego fans and his teammates. During
the Clippers’ 1983-1984 and 1984-1985 seasons,
Walton bounced back, once again playing impressively,
but the Clippers never experienced the success of the
Trailblazers in NBA play.
Ends Basketball Career with Celtics
In 1985 Walton was traded by the Clippers to the
Boston Celtics. In a last flash of brilliance, he rose above
his injuries to play in eighty games for the Celtics during
the 1985-1986 season, averaging 7.6 points per game.
With Walton’s help, the Celtics advanced to the playoffs
and eventually won the NBA championship. The following
season, Walton played only ten games before his recurring
injury forced him to retire from professional
basketball. For the whole of his career, Walton played in a
total of 468 games, averaging 13.3 points per game, with
6,215 points, 4,923 rebounds, and 1,034 blocked shots.
By the time of his retirement, Walton’s chronic injury
had grown so severe that it limited his ability to get
around. In 1990 he underwent surgery to fuse some of the
bones in his left foot and ankle. However, the surgery forever
ended any hopes of playing basketball again, making
it impossible for Walton to bend or flex his left foot. To
keep busy, Walton got involved in charity work and
coached a handful of individual promising college players,
including Shaquille O’Neal at Lousiana State University.
In time, Walton decided to see if he could find a job as
a sportscaster or color analyst. Making the transition
proved one of the toughest hurdles in his life, Walton told
ESPN. “When I started in this business . . . , I couldn’t get
a job. They’d look at me and say, ‘No way, Walton. Don’t
call us back and don’t come around here any more.”
But Walton was not to be so easily discouraged. His
persistence eventually paid off, and he landed a job in
1990 as analyst for cable’s Prime Ticket Network. Not
1710
Yr Team GP PTS FG% FT% RPG APG TO
1974 POR 35 448 .513 .686 12.6 4.8 0
1975 POR 51 823 .471 .583 13.4 4.3 0
1976 POR 65 1210 .528 .697 14.4 3.8 0
1977 POR 58 1097 .522 .720 13.2 5.0 206
1979 SDC 14 194 .503 .593 9.0 2.4 37
1982 SDC 33 465 .528 .556 9.8 3.6 105
1983 SDC 55 668 .556 .597 8.7 3.3 177
1984 LAC 67 676 .521 .680 9.0 2.3 174
1985 BOS 80 606 .562 .713 6.8 2.1 151
1986 BOS 10 28 .385 .533 3.1 0.9 15
TOTAL 468 6215 .521 .660 10.5 3.4 865
BOS: Boston Celtics; LAC: Los Angeles Clippers; POR: Portland Trailblazers; SDC: San Diego Clippers.
long after that he joined CBS Sports to cover the NCAA
Final Four. He next jumped to NBC, where he provided
commentary for NBA games and also the 1996 Atlanta
and 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics Games. In between
jobs for NBC, he found time to fulfill assignments for a
number of broadcast and cable networks, including Fox,
KCAL in Los Angeles, Turner Sports, MSNBC, and the
NBA itself. Although it wasn’t easy for him to break
into broadcasting, Walton over time proved a natural.
The Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association
honored him with its Best Television Analyst/Commentator
Award seven times between 1992 and 2000.
He’s also been nominated for a number of Emmy
awards and in 2001 won an Emmy for best live sports
television broadcast.
Inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame
The 1990s also brought Walton some well-deserved
recognition for his contributions to basketball. He was
inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield,
Massachusetts, in 1993. The following year he was
voted into the Verizon Academic All-American Hall of
Fame. In 1997 Walton was named one of the NBA’s fifty
best players of all time, and that same year Walton became
the first male basketball player from the state of
California to be inducted into the National High School
Sports Hall of Fame. For his extensive civic and professional
contributions over the twenty-five years since
graduating from UCLA, Walton in 1999 received the
NCAA’s Silver Anniversary Award. A longtime fan of
the Grateful Dead, in June 2001 Walton became the inaugural
inductee into the Grateful Dead Hall of Fame, a
non-profit charitable organization founded by members
of the band and their friends.
Interviewed by ESPN in 2002, Walton was asked
who he thought was his toughest opponent on the basketball
court during his years of college and professional
play. He replied: “Without question, no hesitation, Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar was the best player I ever played