William T. "Bill" Walton's Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Speech 

Bill Walton was not only a Hall Fame Basketball player but a Hall of Fame person RIP

RIP Bill. A winner, on and off, the court. Hall of fame player. Great father. Loyal friend. A real Dead head. RIP Bill, you will be missed.

All he did in speech was talk and compliment others. Love this guy and RIP

R.I.P. Bill Walton...a towering example of how to overcome obstacles in life. He overcame not just every opposing player on the basketball court, but every physical injury, and even a stuttering condition to the extent that he won an Emmy Award for broadcasting.

Now that is a professional hall of fame induction speech

What an elegant speech, thanking literally everyone. Rest in Peace, Big Man.

I love Bill Walton, that big smile, his willingness to participate in these events. A well spoken intelligent man, who has compassion. Thanks for just being you Bill and God bless ya.

Class. Just pure class. Living in Portland, I remember the '77 championship, but what he did with the '86 Celtics? Difficult to come up with a tougher 6th man. Walton is a stud. The NBA today sucks cuz everyone's launching 3s. I miss the physical, inside play, and Walton was one of the best. Congratulations on the HOF. 🍻

RIP. You made the world better. Shine on, Bill

Shame about Walton's injuries He was the best player in the world from 1976-1978 The Blazers went 44-21 with Bill in 1977 in the championship year and 5-12 without him 48-10 with Bill in 1978 in 10-14 without him He wasn't the scorer that Kareem was, but he was a better rebounder, passer, shotblocker and defender. Phenomenal player.

Bill Walton makes the world a more interesting place

Bill was a kind soul with a huge heart! He was a great person! Bill is THE GOAT! Miss you Bill.

He's my favorite basketball player ever. Loved watching Big Bill block shots. Wish I could have done it too.

Thanks Bill for making 1976-77 the most amazing year of my life! Your TEAM play made us BLAZERMANIACS the BEST Fans we could be. THANK YOU! Rip City!!!

From Boston to Portland, we love you Bill!

Some rise, some fall and some climb....love you Bill! One of the best on & off the court

A rare and truly unique player who had the potential to possibly become the best player in NBA history. There are very few players you can say that about, Bill was one of those players. The fact that a regular season MVP, a Finals MVP, a Sixth Man of the Year, a HOFer is one of the great "what ifs," that says a lot about how great he was and the potential he had.

One of the greatest of all time. If (the big if) not so many injuries probably the greatest ever.

He sure did. A true star who undoubtedly made his team and teammates better like few ever have.

Bill and wife came into laker game late one nite to watch Luke play he sat on aisle autographed everything from caps balls pizza boxes he loved the fans what a sweetheart be well sir

RIP Bill. As a fellow Bruin, you are my favorite all-time player. You inspire me to be better and nicer.

It is a tribute to his work ethic to talk as well as he does. His stuttering was a huge problem for him up to his 20's. He was a good as there ever was when he was healthy.

Bill Walton a very classy and top notched big man, got his autograph in Denver back in 1999.

I selfishly thought l had ten more years of listening to the wisdom, intelligence and insightfulness of Bill Walton so l am soaking up all the previously unseen interviews l can find on the internet.

All the spectacular college play at UCLA ,gave the NBA career mostly injury prone. This guy was TARZAN on the court.He spoke like a educated speaker,with a touch of humility..

Charles Cinco-It;s a basketball Hall of Fame not NBA Hall of Fame and when you factor in Walton's college c career he is a uno doubt hall of fame. He was one of the greatest college players of all-time.

I was a little to young to remember Bill Walton in his prime. I remember him as the 6th man of the Celtics. Still pretty damn good after all the injuries he went through. Mr. Walton may you rest in peace. The world is not as good a place without you. I know you are teaching Jerry the game and he is teaching you the guitar. You truly were one of a kind. God Bless

a great guy- great player and wicked smart

Amazing player!

Honesty, Truth, Compassion and Class!

Bill, we met in 2010 on our bicycle ride from SD to the border with you and the Pebble Pedaler Brothers. So proud to know you and thank you for that championship in Portland. Glen (and Bobbie) Gullickson

Dude loves Boston and the Cs.

A Gem in a world of pf Rocks. Rest in Peace

My grand father ran into Bill Walton in 1986 in Boston on a trip to visit my family. My grand father expressed that in that brief exchange, he could feel the greatness not just in the pursuit of basketball greatness, but in the pursuit of greatness itself. You can feel this greatness in his speech. We miss you Bill but your greatness is immortalized in the hall. I went on to attend UCLA graduate school. I feel connected with Walton and am inspired by the man. God bless you and your entire family and all the people you have touched and inspired.

Right Synister. Walton was no one dimensional specialist like Rodman, Vandeweghe, Aguirre. He excelled in all areas, least of all winning.

RIP Bill Walton! Great basketball player, and an even better person!

If bills feet. Weren't such a problem..in my humble opinion..he would have gone down as one of the top 5 centers to ever play the game of 🏀 basketball..the man had great inside moves..could run like a deer. Just had tge love for tge game like no other. Congrats..mr.walton .your enshriment..is so well deserved.

Made such a massive impact in the game despite his injuries, 70s Walton was a monster

My favorite announcer for the nba. He is funny & never afraid to go hard on the players. " terrible pass " awful shot " atrocious defense " hes also still a big hippy. Anyway what a great job to call games. Esp when he did the 90s golden era games. He also won a title for portland. This guy was dominant but injuries plagued him. He still got in. Now that all the golden era bball players are all in the hof I'd love to go to Springfield to see the hof. I went there in the late 90s to visit umass we stopped at the hof & it was nothing like the baseball hall of fame bc basketball was almost bankrupt in the 70s until bird & magic brought it back from the ashes & then mj took it home. Bill was way before my time even with the 86 celtics I was only 4. I love that clip of birds steal on Isiah 's inbound pass that he passed to dj who layed it in. Bill had that huge smile on his face hi fiving the other guys. He came to the celtics at the end of his career & never let his ego allow any jealousy & he accepted his role as a bench player which must be tough after he was such a great player in his early career. Kareem was pretty old when the lakers had him & he started. That team won bc of magic & worthy. I cant imagine Kareem accepting not starting.

THANK YOU SOMEONE WHO GETS IT!!!!

Great player and smart

THROW IT DOWN BIG MAN!

I feel like of all the NBA Greats, he'd probably be one of the most fun to hangout with. I feel like he'd be kind-hearted and polite to any random person he encountered.

The best... and that goes well beyond basketball. Thank you sir for the memories.

Lov d watching him play especially at ucla. Such a team player with skill in all phases, intensity and intelligence

BEST Collegiate player ever. Only Russell is even close. Too short albeit a brilliant pro career. Very grateful man and appreciative of other greats like Dr J, Pistol Pete, Kareem, Wilt to name a few.

Right On, I remember the Trail Blazers victory, Portland erupted!! Thank for talking about the total commitment a family has to a competitive athlete growing up

Class. RIP, Big Man.

Where will we find such a man again?

He was just a great guy! RIP Bill Walton....you will be missed greatly!

Thanks for putting the "William T." in the description of the video. I wouldn't have known it was him without it. smh

I remember in hs all the guys were saying how the 76ers were going to crush the Trailblazers. I was the only one who said the Trailblazers would win. LoL

Robert Parish said when Bill was feeling good, there wasn't gonna be any layups

List of achievements by Bill Walton: 2× NBA champion (1977, 1986) NBA Finals MVP (1977) NBA Most Valuable Player (1978) NBA Sixth Man of the Year (1986) 2× NBA All-Star (1976-1977) All-NBA First Team (1978) All-NBA Second Team (1977) 2× NBA All-Defensive First Team (1977-1978) NBA 50th Anniversary Team #32 Retired by the Portland Trail Blazers

The reason his totals are low is because he suffered numerous injuries throughout his career. But despite that, he led the Portland Trailblazers in 1977 to the franchise's only NBA Championship. He averaged 13.3 points, 10.5 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.2 blocks per game despite the smaller roles he played later in his career with the Celtics. Dennis Rodman is in the hall of fame and the only stat that's better than Walton's was Rebounding.

Beautiful man was lucky to see Walt Hazzard and Big Bill clinic 1981

Condolences 💐

Love how he got that last Green Team dig at Kevin McHale! 💚

The Big Red Head. Always seem to give more credit to those than he gives to himself.

BILL WALTON IS A HEADS UP GRITTY AS YOU CAN GET ,IMAGINATIVE , HONEST PRINCIPLED FIRST RATE KIND OF GUY . AT ERA COULD HAVE LEARNED TODAY'S GAME LEARNED IT IN 1 YEAR , EXCELLED , TODAY . BILL IS AN ALMOST CONSTANT HIGHLIGHT VIEW OF HIGH TRIBUTE OF THOSE HE WAS ASSOCIATED WITH . KAREEM IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY WELL EDUCATED , WRITER & SOCIAL SPOKESMAN . MOST OF THE UCLA WOODEN TRAINED MEN ARE .THAN ALMOST ANY AMERICAN LEADERSHIP INDIVIDUALS THERE ARE . pww

Grateful

I remember first seeing Bill Walton playing with Portland Trailblazer

Came here to say RIP Bill.

RIP Bill.......

Rest easy

RIP Bill....

Summer of '77, I was the guy stopping traffic for road construction in the eastern Oregon desert. Hot day! From a standard green Land Cruiser maybe ten cars back in the holdup, this giant hippie left his door open, jumped the fence into a hayfield and loped out to one of those firehose size sprinklers. Pulled his tee shirt over it so it could blast up and out his neck - and just stood there, stepping around sideways as it rotated. Then I turned the stop sign around and he had to hurry back. He was headed to the Strawberry Wilderness, one that even most Oregonian's have never heard of. Still luvya Bill!

Are people really debating weather or not a 2x NBA Champion, Finals MVP, Regular season MVP, Sixth Man of the Year and revolutionary player who took a team in their first post season to a title should be in the HoF? Damn.

They always talk about the '80s Celtics 'Big Three' - Larry, DJ & Kevin. I beg to differ. 'Big Five, and Friends', more like! How can you ommit Bill, Chief, and heck, Danny Ange - make it Six! - and so many others. This was a _TEAM._

RIP big fella

Bill's ability to give the Chief a rest on the sidelines, without a drop in talent, during the 86 season in Boston was a big reason why the 86 Celtics are in the argument as one of the best teams ever because they had 5 (five!) future Hall of Famers on the lineup. The last 3-plus minutes of the Game 4 finals in Houston showed why Bill was on the team.

since his ucla days, walton has always been my favorite

Rodman's speech is so emotional.

Great speech, what would he of accomplished with no injuries. Unknown but the mind wonders.

As Great A Player. A Greater Human Being.😊RIP Redhead

A very nice man is bill. I think he is great player. When he was not hurt. Was a top 5. Have a long life my friend. 🏀🏀🏀🏀🏀.

Walton is ranked #16 on my all-time greatest players list and that's with a career riddled with injury. I can only imagine how high on the list he'd be if he had a career where he was more healthy

i love HoF speeches

What some people don't know is that Wooden almost "fired" him from the team... Bill was a little brash in his younger years and Wooden told him unless he followed his rules, he could play somewhere else... if that happened, we would have a different story now of Bill

Rust Never Sleeps

OK I read some of the comments. It's the Basketball Hall of Fame, not the NBA Hall of Fame. Pay attention.

Players of today, will never know injuries like the PLAYERS of the 70s and 80s played thru.

RIP

the bar

San Diego Clippers

So in that case, I know this is out of the blue, but Tracy Mcgrady has a chance to be in the hall of fame? I mean he was less than 1,000+ away from 20k and he was two time scoring champion. I know he didn't win any championship but who cares, he was a superstar!

100% class act.

Bill's HoF speech is the exact opposite of Michael Jordan's. None of it was about him. He thanked everyone else, even spending more than a minute giving love to the fans. He's been gone for more than a week, and I'm still watching old videos of him on RU-vid. As Kareem said, the world seems a little heavier with the loss of Bill Walton.

God has a great team in heaven! RIP Bill.

Kind of surprised by this speech. Bill was more serious than I expected. I thought he'd be a little more funny and light hearted.

He is a class act. Only behind 42 to 1 and Once Brothers as far as 30 for 30's go.

If Bill Walton was health he would have been, (without any doubt) a top five big center in the history of basketball.

I can't wait till Luke Walton's Hall of fame speech

I wonder if Walton has the lowest point Total of any one in the HOF

If only he hadn't suffered so many injuries, man, passing, scoring, a true team player, I'm sure Larry Bird, and the other Celtic players really kind of fed off his energy and enthusiasm for playing, despite probably being in lots of pain at times.Also, one of the greatest College players all time

It was like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. This frenetic second coming of the "Indiana Rubber Man". Russ may have been a little quicker off his toes but Walton didn't need to be. He had ..already..positioned himself in the best place to bloc a shot &/or rebound. Russ was a good post passer but Bongalo Bill was THE GOAT fast break initiating rebounder # Banco.

Does he mention the Dead or quote song lyrics?

Just a shame that men of his character must one day leave this earth and be no more. Sad.

World

San Diego Rockets