Courtesy New York Post

(November 6, 2009) Bill Walton, who yes terday hit 57, packed it in this week as a TV basketball analyst for more of the same reason he retired as a basketball player, 23 years ago: a broken body -- feet, to legs, to back, to neck. After working only part of last season, his back is now so bad he can't sit long in one place.

But there were times -- lots of them -- when I wanted to take care of his neck, especially when he spent too much on-air time being zany, tie-dyed Bill Walton, Steve Jones' object-de-Op Ed.

Walton had a rotten, modest habit of obscuring the important things he had to say with extreme declarations and put-ons, often heard and confused as his version of the truth. But for those who could distinguish the silly from the sage, Walton, every telecast, left important messages.

During the early- and mid-1990s, he recognized and lamented the diminished state of the game, that it was becoming one-dimensional, that coaches coached timeout-to-timeout and that the fast break -- no center was more end-to-end complete than Walton -- was being lost to walk-it-up, then throw it down low or throw up a 3-pointer tedium.

Walton also said important things about the state of basketball players. For those who dismissed him as a West Coast flower child lost somewhere on Ventura Highway between Hakeem Olajuwon and Harry Krishna, he said some very grounded -- dare I? -- conservative things.

He once delivered an unrehearsed lecture on NBA players who wear music-connected ear phones in public -- through airports, into arenas -- as emitting "Go Away/Stay Away" signals to fans and potential fans. Walton felt that such clear and present images fed a cumulative reality that ill-served the NBA.

That was another thing about Walton: For a guy who was tough to miss and/or go unrecognized -- he isn't only 6-foot-11; he's "Hey, that's Bill Walton!" -- no one was more patient, friendly and nourishing to the public. If he wasn't happy to meet ya, it likely was your fault.

That's why it kills me that so many -- too many -- latter-day basketball fans recall Walton the TV analyst as a say-crazy-stuff act. He was a lot more than that, a lot better than that. All you had to do was read between his lines.

Walton never kidded himself about his TV persona; he knew that he could drive people crazy. In a swap of e-mails, this week, he acknowledged that he felt like St. Stephen in the song by that name performed by -- who else? -- The Grateful Dead.

"Wherever he goes, the people all complain," was the line Walton applied to himself.

Not all the people. Feel better, Bill Walton. And then better and better.

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