Back from the Dead

by Bill Walton

  Right after I signed on to the team, Tony Daly did some surgery on both my ankles to cut excess bone back, in the never-ending struggle to try to improve the flexibility in my feet and ankles. But I was back at it right away.

  The team was fun, dynamic, exciting, and quite talented. I had lots of new teammates, and some old ones as well. The backcourt was World B. Free, Randy Smith, and Brian Taylor. Up front we had Sidney Wicks, Kermit Washington, Swen Nater, and Joe Bryant. Gene Shue was the coach—and he was awesome, always so positive, upbeat, imaginative, and extremely creative. We were very good and excited to all spend the season together.

  But first the Clippers and Blazers had to weirdly work out a deal, because at the time the NBA had a byzantine set of rules for free agency, when a player changes teams by his choosing. The teams involved would figure out between themselves a compensation package that would send any combination of valuable assets back to the team of the departing free agent player—Portland in this case. The system was more like a forced trade or sale, and it really limited a player’s ability to choose his own workplace and terms of employment. It would slowly reform in the coming years, through the brave efforts of some legendary players, but at the time it was the only game in town. And if the teams involved could somehow not agree on what that compensation package would be, then the NBA commissioner would make the decision himself.

  I was in limbo, since neither the Clippers nor Blazers would budge from their claims and demands. So Commissioner Larry O’Brien had to step in and settle the dispute, with his sole decision determining the equity of my life. The Blazers wanted basically the entire franchise in return—if not all of Southern California. The Clippers argued that the extenuating circumstances of my departure had to be considered as mitigating factors, and that this was not a normal transaction regarding money and value but rather one where I had left Portland because of their medical mistreatment of me.

  The dispute dragged on endlessly. David Stern, then a young lawyer with the NBA, worked tirelessly but ultimately futilely behind the scenes to try to make everybody happy through conciliation.

  In the end, there were no winners, and nobody was happy with the outcome. Larry O’Brien ended up awarding to Portland Kermit Washington, Kevin Kunnert, a ton of money, and some important draft choices.

  The Clippers sold Randy Smith to Cleveland to get the money to pay the bill, just as Randy and I had become great friends and teammates. He never really recovered as a player, and what was all going to be so perfect for so many of us was now turning into a nightmare.

  * * *

  We had to pick ourselves up and get going, as goes life and the NBA.

  We were already into the exhibition season while this was all coming down and the team was transforming. Very quickly we came up against the Lakers, in Anaheim, at the domed convention center there. They had Kareem as well as Norm Nixon, and now Jamaal Wilkes, who had come down as a free agent from his championship days in Golden State, and Magic Johnson, whom they had taken as the No. 1 overall draft pick the previous spring.

  They were good, but we routed them as we played beautifully, powerfully, and with great pride, passion, and purpose. World B. Free was incredible. The entire ownership and management team of the Clippers, who were all L.A. guys, were all there, and there was a tangible sense of euphoria. Everybody was ecstatic, and the thought of greatness for this new team permeated everything, from the locker room to the large and swelling crowd waiting outside for autographs to the joyous bus ride home to San Diego late that night.

  We had another exhibition the next night, at home in our gym, the San Diego Sports Arena. After a full day of getting ready with my well-established pregame preparation, I went out to warm up. And the deep burning pain in my foot was back. I couldn’t run. Or jump. Or play. All over again.

  The bone in my foot had rebroken. And one more time, I spent the next forever doing everything possible to get that foot and ankle to stop hurting and start working again. As I went everywhere, seeing every doctor and trying everything imaginable, so many people from all walks of life were willing to do anything they could to help.

  A master biochemist from nearby UCSD thought that if I ingested massive amounts of a broad range of trace minerals, everything would be fine. Who knew if it worked: it totally shut down my entire gastrointestinal system, and I was unable to stay on the program long term, as however much I gulped down, nothing would ever come out.

  Another guy, a studiously subdued engineer, designed this physical apparatus with all kinds of hinges, springs, and pulleys and lots of metal, leather, and plastic. I was supposed to wear this thing on the outside of my skin, in conjunction with my shoe. The goal was to transfer all of my weight through the metal and other prefabricated material so that the stress of running, jumping, pivoting, and weight-bearing would be totally eliminated by this device. We never got very far with it.

  Then I got a handwritten letter from someone who professed that a curse had been placed on my life. And that the only way to break the curse was to go back to the Philippines and make a trip to go see this witch doctor who would be able to remove the curse; then I would be fine. There was a hand-drawn map with directions how to get there. I was to go past the big tree, cross the river, turn at the big pile of rocks, and there he’d be.

  I didn’t go. But that was about the only thing I didn’t try.

  Ever since, whenever I’ve been up against really bad things, somebody will always chime in with, “Well, I guess we could always go to the Philippines and find the witch doctor.”

  It was agonizingly painful—for everybody, on every level, and no one more so than me. It was my life, my world, my health, my home, everything. And nothing was working.

  One difference this time was that people were no longer thinking that I was just making the whole thing up. There was growing concern as I went from doctor to doctor that there were major structural problems with my feet, leading to the continuing breakdowns. The Clippers and my doctors never brought up or out the painkilling needles, though that didn’t make thing any easier.

  I did whatever I could for the next several months, and in that time I was able to get better. I returned to play in the NBA in January. But just as I was starting to hit my stride, the bone in my foot broke again.

  It was a very depressing and debilitating cycle. I would rest, and the bone would heal. I would play, and the bone would break. Rest, heal, play, break. Over and over and over again. It was endless. And awful.

  The doctors—and there were countless numbers of them—were now telling me that I had to stop. That they were no longer treating me in my attempts to return to the NBA, but rather to just return to a tolerable level of pain and a functional life.

  Then they began to explain the long-term ramifications of the problems with the oft-injured bone, which they felt was in real danger of dying. If that happened, amputation was the next step.

  I was in my late twenties.

  * * *

  As this negative downward spiral continued without end, there also began an endless series of legal battles. The Clippers sued everybody—including me, the NBA, the insurance companies led by Lloyd’s of London, and the Blazers.

  I sued the doctor in Portland who had injected me before the game when the bone in my foot split in half. I was legally precluded from including the team in my claim because I was covered by workers’ compensation through my team-provided health insurance.

  Lloyd’s sued the agent who wrote the policy.

  The NBA Players Association sued the NBA over the compensation award that had sent so much talent and treasure up to Portland.

  All of my time, effort, resources, and spirit were now consumed with doctors and lawyers.

  It was not how I had ever envisioned things playing out.

  * * *

  In a constant struggle to find a shining star in the maddening, frustrating, and bizarre world of being a Clipper, one summer five of us went on the trip of a lifetime t
o the Galapagos Islands. Our younger brother, Andy, was the engine that powered our spaceship. He had plenty of help from our friends. That story will get its own book one day.

  Another incredibly bright spot occurred the day our third son, Luke, was born: March 28, 1980. With a shining star twinkling in the clear night sky, I named him after the greatest teammate I ever had, an incredible force of life, spirit, and nature who made everyone around him better—Maurice Lucas. On the day Little Luke was born, Big Luke came bearing a gift, a large picture—of himself in full rage, action, and glory. Going for it all, as only he ever could. Maurice signed it, “To Little Luke, to make it in this world—you’ve got to be tough, Big Luke.” It hung over Little Luke’s bed from the first day of his life until Little Luke went away to college, eighteen years later.

  At the time, I was on crutches and in a cast—and in and out of the hospital, the doctors’ offices, the lawyers’ offices, and the courthouse. I missed the rest of the NBA season and would miss all of the next two as well.

  My foot was not getting better, despite the constant surgeries trying to create more flexibility in my foot and ankle in a never-ending drive to try to enable the stress of impact to be distributed up and through the normal channels of the musculoskeletal system. All to no avail.

  Ultimately, there was a big convergence of all the people involved in the various lawsuits. It was held at a hotel conference room somewhere near LAX. Lots of people were there representing all the interested parties—the Clippers, the NBA, the television networks, the insurance companies, the big-time sponsors from both the team and the league, scientists, and lots of lawyers, accountants, and doctors. People had flown in from all over the country.

  My X-rays and medical records were spread out everywhere. And all day long everybody was theorizing, prognosticating, deliberating, arguing, presenting, you name it, and it was happening—all, sadly, with no consensus or positive resolution.

  Finally, as the day was getting long and disappointing frustration was enveloping the room, the guys who were in charge, sensing that it was all slipping away, said, “OK. Enough. We need to get something conclusive here. So if you’re not a doctor, please step to the back, and all the doctors—please come to the front. Let’s see what we have here.”

  I had already seen all the doctors individually before—at their own offices, hospitals, wherever. But now all the top guys were there together, at the same time, on the same problem.

  As we went around the room, they all had their last chance with their diagnosis and plan for the future. My future.

  It started bad. And then got worse.

  “He’ll have trouble for the rest of his life.”

  “He’ll walk with a deteriorating limp forever.”

  “The pain will never go away, and get worse over time.”

  “He’ll never play again.”

  “The bone is going to die.”

  “We’re going to have to cut his foot off.”

  “Amputation is a very real possibility.”

  And then they got to the only one who had yet to speak to the assembled group. Dr. Bill Wagner, from Whittier, California. The oldest guy in the room.

  He leaned in as the room quieted, and after a long pause and deep breath, softly said, “I’ve got an idea.”

  In a room full of the smartest people, most with very powerful egos, there was a hushed response. “What now, Dr. Wagner?”

  He sat up very straight and said, “I’ve come up with a new operation, procedure, and technique that I think might work.”

  “What is it?” echoed throughout the doubting room in fatigue and exasperation.

  He went on to explain this incredibly complex, five-large-incision, all up, down, over, under, and around my foot and ankle surgical procedure and technique where he would cut, saw, take lots of bone out, realign the joint surfaces, relocate and elongate lots of soft tissue including fascia, tendons, and ligaments, and ultimately get to what he saw as the root cause of my problems—a congenital cartilaginous and boney bar between the calcaneus and navicular bones in my foot and ankle that was preventing the normal movement and dissipation of stress throughout my musculoskeletal system. Dr. Wagner’s goal would be an attempt to remove that coalition bar and realign the mechanics of my foot and ankle.

  To a man, everybody else in the room said, “That’ll never work.”

  Dr. Wagner quietly and stoically held his ground.

  In unison, the skeptics followed up with, “How many of these have you done, Dr. Wagner?”

  “Ten” was his instant but thoughtfully cautious reply.

  “How many of these ten have worked?” they asked.

  “None.”

  And still, that’s the direction I chose—because Dr. Wagner was the only one offering me a chance at anything.

  Dr. Wagner had been a rising orthopedic surgeon and a passionate rock climber when he had a horrific fall that almost cost him his life. Large parts of his skin had been sheared off and he’d broken numerous bones, but a team of surgeons had been able to repair everything—everything except his foot and ankle, which ultimately had to be fused together into a large and rigid stump. Dr. Wagner devoted the rest of his life to helping fix people’s broken feet, and he’d built a whole medical center around the science and medicine of the foot.

  He was so good, people came from all over the world to see him. He was so busy, he only had the time to see the worst of the worst cases. And when it was my turn for surgery in the early spring of 1981, Dr. Wagner looked right into my eyes and soul as hard as he could and said sternly, “Now listen, Walton. I’m not doing this so that you can go out and try to play basketball again. I’m trying to give you some kind of life here, and to hopefully save you from having the whole thing cut off.”

  * * *

  The Clippers, meanwhile, were going through a dizzying carousel of players, coaches, executives, and staff members. And as things went steeply downhill for me, I dragged the franchise down, too. We couldn’t win. We couldn’t sell our product—the team. Ticket sales were nonexistent. Sponsors, corporate partners, and media outlets jumped ship as fast as they could.

  The biggest crowd reaction in one dismal stretch of games was to an entry in a Halloween costume contest. The costume: a young man hobbling onto the court with a red-haired wig and beard, a headband, crutches, and a cast on his foot. I think the prize was a discounted option on future playoff tickets.

  The team didn’t have the players, the off-court leadership, or the financial commitment or resources to make it work. And the world of the Clippers grew even weirder when Donald T. Sterling bought the franchise in 1981, two years after I signed on.

  If the paychecks did come, they often bounced higher than the basketballs did. The deferred compensation to retired and disabled players that was standard procedure in those days was ignored and became the subject of yet more lawsuits. Coaches were fired. Players and assets were sold, or just let go. Staff members went unpaid and were basically forced to quit. When injuries shortened the roster, ownership refused to add new players, even when the number of able-bodied players was less than the league-required minimum of eight. Injured players were told to suit up and sit on the bench to meet the minimum.

  Practices were held at 7:00 a.m. on local military bases because it was cheaper, or maybe even free at that time of day. There was often no access to any locker rooms or showers. They did let us use the restrooms, though. Flights from San Diego to, say, Portland and Seattle always seemed to go through Kansas City, because somebody had some free coupons on Pan Am or TWA.

  Players would talk openly about going out of their way to injure a teammate so that they could keep their own job. Fights were a constant occurrence. Players, coaches, staff—everybody was fighting one another.

  Late in one season, with yet another new general manager and direction, they instituted a new marketing push and plan—to get to thirty wins on the season. Out of eighty-two games. That was our goal—to get to t
hirty wins. They wanted us all to wear these cheap white T-shirts everywhere with a blue No. 30 ironed on. The extras were saved and used as team holiday presents the next year. The new guy was very proud and excited. He thought it was genius. Yeah! Thirty wins. Wow! Here we go!

  Budgets on everything were slashed to near zero or eliminated entirely. Medical, travel, equipment, laundry, office, and every other kind of bill went unpaid. We had to keep moving, never able to go back anywhere. The team’s basic business model was to sue anybody and everybody they owed money to, figuring the payee would ultimately settle for a lesser amount rather than fight the endless nonsense.

  The NBA tried to take the team away from Donald Sterling.

  The NBA Players Association worked overtime on our team alone.

  * * *

  In the off-season, which always came early because of no chance at the playoffs, we tried to do whatever we could to immerse ourselves in something positive.

  I’m an early riser, always have been. I love going to bed early so that I can get going tomorrow. I would regularly be at Mission Beach at dawn for a morning walk. It was just ten minutes away, and a straight shot from home. The best foot therapy that I’ve ever found is the beach. Walk in the soft sand to find the problem. Then up and down in calf-deep cold water to help heal it. On far too many mornings, Marvin Barnes was already there, working the parking lot.

  The USA National Cycling Team was based in San Diego for much of this time. Their team hotel was just a couple of blocks away from our home, up the street at the Balboa Park Inn. We would start a group road ride every morning at nine. We would go out for a three-to-four-hour burn all over town, come back, clean up (often in our pool), have lunch, chill for a bit, and then really get after it in the afternoon, often in the velodrome, which is also right in the park, not more than a couple hundred yards right across the canyon from the hotel.