Bill was a dear friend and a very kind man. This news is heartbreaking. Rest in Peace, world’s tallest deadhead. 
My dad was a big UCLA basketball fan so I remember watching him play as a child. As a long time deadhead my best memories are seeing him at shows and interacting with him over the decades. I briefly met him many times. He was always kind and gracious. A true legend.
I thought about you and know that you knew him well.
Thanks for thinking of me. I’m still in shock. We were just talking yesterday about the fact that we hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks.
I obviously didn’t know him, but I loved watching him play at UCLA.
However, he never should have ventured into broadcasting. He did, quite frankly, a terrible job.
But as a fellow Deadhead, I will say RIP, Bill.
He helped the Portland Trailblazers make it to their only championship. One of the few times I was ever able to watch a whole game. And it happened on my Dad’s birthday.
I loved him when he was on those Celtics teams.
Rest in Peace, Bill Walton.
Oh.
My freshman year at UCLA, I briefly met him. It was so brief, I’m sure he retained no memory at all of me, LOL.
I remember him walking through the doorway to the dining area at the Student Union. I winced; I was sure he was going to smack his head! Of course he didn’t. He probably checked out all doorways on campus, to see which ones he could clear without ducking.
RIP, Bill.
~VOW
Oh man: he led the Trailblazers to their only championship in 1977.
There was nothing like the sight of Bill Walton running down the Boston Garden floor with his long ponytail flying behind.
He wasn’t bad for a backup center.
I knew him not at all.
But we did nod to each other at more GD shows than I could count.
My condolences for your loss, the loss to the GD community, the NBA world, and to all of those who mourn his passing.
Fare Thee Well, Bill Walton. Tell Jerry I said “Thank you.”
As a New Englander and fellow Grateful Dead fan I say RIP Bill. Also, I had no idea there were so many Deadheads on the SDMB.
I’ve been to exactly one NBA game in my life. It was Bill Walton and the Blazers. Rip City!
Fun fact: Walton got mixed up in the FBI’s hunt for Patty Hearst. Walton was quite the activist then and hung out with a couple who at one point sheltered SLA members including Hearst. So the FBI came knocking. The matter came close to ruining his career.
I really enjoyed him as color commentator for PAC12 (“The Conference of Champions”) games. Always entertaining. He did quite a few Arizona games over the past few years.
When the PAC12 announced that it was (effectively) ending, my first reaction was, “That’s going to break Bill Walton’s heart.” Kind of spooky that both he and the PAC12 ended at almost exactly the same time (the final PAC12 game was the baseball championship Saturday night).
I guess we might like to think that he is now residing in RIP city.
I got to hang out with him (with about 20 others) for three days at the Omega Institute near Rhinebeck, New York, a kind of rural Buddhist center with meditation retreats and the like. We learned some basketball techniques, with bits of wisdom interspersed (Phil Jackson had led it the summer previous).
Such a nice guy (and multifaceted).
I never really followed basketball. But long after Walton had retired I heard him interviewed on a radio station, and he was so engaging I couldn’t help but smile. Some other player’s name would come up, and Walton would say, “Wow, what a great player he was, and a great human being too!” And you had to love it.
A few weeks later I caught an interview with another basketball player, more or less a contemporary of Walton’s, who spent the interview grousing about how unfair everything was and rarely had a good word to say about anyone, teammate or opponent alike, and the contrast was…stunning.
Thank you.