30 for 30 running thread

That's a good interviewer then.

 

I met Walton four years ago when I was in New York to interview David Stern at his office. Stern was running a bit late so I sat in the waiting area. About 10 minutes after, I hear two voices coming down the hall— one I recognized and another I was struggling to place until Bill and Stern came around the corner. Walton immediately introduced himself and I told him we’d just come back from Portland weeks earlier. As we talked, Stern was steering him towards the elevator door and then, when it arrived, into the elevator and treated him like that chatty neighbor.

when the door closed, Stern turned to me and said “you have to do that or else he will stay all day.”

 

Yeah he got a lot of great stuff from Bill by sometimes poking him.

 

Episode 2 had the whole buildup from his friends about how he wasn’t going to talk about crossing paths with the SLA. Then they cut to Walton with arms folded and you expect him to shoot the guy down. But even though he doesn’t want to, he reads his old letter and doesn’t flinch in recapping it. Whoever was interviewing did a helluva job building trust.

 

Watched the first episode last night. His time at UCLA coincided with my time at USC. Of course, hated him back then. Lots of familiar places. Greg Lee took him around and they were at our local (not USC) parties, etc. His alleged first restaurant -- Johnny Sproatt's Bat Rack in Santa Monica -- is a place I've been a number of times. Lee was a Valley Dude tooling around the Westside, but highly respected in the volleyball community. Lee died a couple of months ago.

The weird thing is, when I watch Walton walk today, that is the exact procedure prescribed to me -- ankle fusion. The tradeoff is: walk funny or endure pain. At this point, I'm enduring pain. I'm considering the fusion.

 

Who knew Robert Parish was so damn funny? Like he could hold his own with Chuck and Kenny on Inside the NBA.

 

I loved how Parish called Walton "William" throughout. Perhaps a lot of Walton's contemporaries did that, I don't know, but every time Parish did I smiled or chuckled.

 

Kind of makes more sense as part of why he hung around the league forever.

 

Don't forget he was busted for having weed mailed to him. He and Walton care about the same things.

 

Knowing what we know about cannabis now, it still irks me about how demonized cannabis was back then.

 

He got off easy because the judge was a fan and thought marijuana laws were stupid.

 

Finished it last night. I hate watching the games he broadcasts because his commentary overshadows the game. But I've been swayed a little bit since a friend (and former colleague) used to have Walton and Lee over to his apartment when Walton was "unable" to talk. Friend tells me what a great guy he really is. You could see that with his interaction with kids and neighborhood folks.

I came away from it thinking Walton is very two-faced, from his hippie, Dead days to 3-piece suits and mega contracts. And the doc never explained why he was completely broke. He made a lot of money in the NBA. Where did all of his money go? One brief mention of the stock market crash. And what about his first wife, the mother of his kids? No mention of her at all.