Neal Walk

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Neal Walk
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Walk with the Phoenix Suns in 1969
Personal information
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Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
DiedScript error: No such module "person date".
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
Listed height6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)
Listed weight220 lb (100 kg)
Career information
High schoolMiami Beach
(Miami Beach, Florida)
CollegeFlorida (1966–1969)
NBA draft1969: Script error: No such module "Ordinal". round, Script error: No such module "Ordinal". overall pick
Drafted byPhoenix Suns
Playing career1969–1981
PositionTemplate:Pluralize from textCenter
Number41
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Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content.Career highlights
Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content.Career NBA statistics
Points7,157 (12.6 ppg)
Rebounds4,392 (7.7 rpg)
Assists1,214 (2.1 apg)
Medals
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Representing Template:Bk
Men's Basketball
Maccabiah Games
Silver medal – second place 1969 Tel Aviv

Neal Eugene Walk (July 29, 1948 – October 4, 2015) was an American college and professional basketball player who was a center in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for eight seasons during the late 1960s and 1970s, playing overseas afterward. Walk played college basketball for the University of Florida, and remains the Florida Gators' all-time rebounds leader.[1] The Phoenix Suns picked Walk second overall in the 1969 NBA draft, having lost the coin toss with the Milwaukee Bucks for Lew Alcindor. Walk played professionally for the Suns, the New Orleans Jazz and the New York Knicks of the NBA.

Early life

Walk was born in Cleveland, Ohio to a Jewish family, and moved to Miami Beach, Florida, with his parents Al and Sylvia at the age of 6.[2][3][4][5][6] He attended Miami Beach High School, and played high school basketball for the Miami Beach Hi-Tides, starting for the first time in his senior year.[6] His high school team made the state semifinals and due to its makeup of mostly Jewish players, it sometimes was subjected to opposing fans yelling anti-Semitic comments at them.[6]

College career

Walk accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Tommy Bartlett's Florida Gators men's basketball team for three seasons from 1966 to 1969. In his junior season, Walk led the NCAA with 19.8 rebounds a game and averaged 26.5 points per game.[1] As a senior team captain, he led the Gators to the 1969 National Invitation Tournament—their first-ever post-season tournament. When Walk graduated from Florida, he was the Gators' all-time leading scorer, and still maintains the team records for career rebounds (1,181), average points per game (20.8), and rebounds in a single game (31), among others. His No. 41 jersey remains the only number to have been retired by the Florida basketball program.[7]

He won a silver medal at the 1969 Maccabiah Games in Israel for Team USA alongside Ronald Green, Steve Kaplan, and Jack Langer.[8]

Professional career

Walk was drafted in the first round (second pick overall) of the 1969 NBA draft by the Phoenix Suns, after they lost a coin toss with the Milwaukee Bucks for the number one pick, which turned out to be Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).[9] In an interview with author Charley Rosen near the end of his life, Walk commented on his perception as one of the league's great "booby prizes", saying "I never paid attention to that bullshit. How many guys would love to be the second overall pick?"[10]

Milwaukee Bucks forward Curtis Perry, a teammate of Abdul-Jabbar's, described Walk's career high 42 point game against the Bucks on January 11, 1972, as "Talent meeting the moment, a harmonic convergence."[11]

He played for the Suns from 1969 to 1974, averaging a career best 20.2 points per game and 12.4 rebounds per game in the 1972–73 season.[1] Walk was traded to the then New Orleans Jazz, and subsequently traded to the New York Knicks, where he played for two seasons. Afterward, he went to play in Venice, Italy, then in Israel with Hapoel Ramat Gan, playing for the team for three seasons.[12][13]

Walk is the only Suns player besides Charles Barkley to average 20 points and 12 rebounds in a season.[14]

NBA career statistics

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage  3P%  3-point field goal percentage  FT%  Free throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  Bold  Career high

Regular season

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1969–70 Phoenix 82 – 17.0 .470 – .640 5.5 1.0 – – 8.2
1970–71 Phoenix 82 Script error: No such module "sort". 24.8 .451 Script error: No such module "sort". .765 8.2 1.4 – – 12.9
1971–72 Phoenix 81 Script error: No such module "sort". 26.4 .479 Script error: No such module "sort". .744 8.2 1.9 – – 15.7
1972–73 Phoenix 81 Script error: No such module "sort". 38.4 .466 Script error: No such module "sort". .786 12.4 3.5 – – 20.2
1973–74 Phoenix 82 Script error: No such module "sort". 31.1 .460 Script error: No such module "sort". .791 10.2 4.0 0.9 0.7 16.8
1974–75 New Orleans 37 Script error: No such module "sort". 23.0 .422 Script error: No such module "sort". .800 7.1 2.7 0.8 0.5 9.9
New York 30 Script error: No such module "sort". 9.1 .409 Script error: No such module "sort". .880 2.6 0.7 0.2 0.1 3.9
1975–76 New York 82 Script error: No such module "sort". 16.3 .432 Script error: No such module "sort". .798 4.7 1.5 0.3 0.3 7.4
1976–77 New York 11 Script error: No such module "sort". 12.3 .491 Script error: No such module "sort". .857 2.5 0.5 0.4 0.3 5.6
Career [15] 568 Script error: No such module "sort". 24.4 .459 Script error: No such module "sort". .758 7.7 2.1 0.6 0.4 12.9

Playoffs

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1970 Phoenix 5 Script error: No such module "sort". 12.6 .395 Script error: No such module "sort". .750 7.0 0.4 – – 8.0
1975 New York 3 Script error: No such module "sort". 13.0 .500 Script error: No such module "sort". Script error: No such module "sort". 1.7 0.7 0.3 0.7 3.3
Career 8 Script error: No such module "sort". 12.8 .415 Script error: No such module "sort". .750 5.0 0.5 0.3 0.7 6.3

Life after the NBA

After Walk retired, he legally changed his first name to Joshua.[14]

In 1988, while Walk was living in Phoenix, it was discovered that Walk had a benign tumor enveloping his spine.[16] Following surgery Walk was left in a wheelchair, from which he played wheelchair basketball for the L.A.-Phoenix Samaritans in the Southern California league of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association.[9] In 1990 Walk was honored at the White House by U.S. President George H. W. Bush, as the "Wheelchair Athlete of The Year".

He later worked for the Phoenix Suns in the Community Affairs department.

Walk is featured in the Miami Beach Senior High School Hall of Fame, a "Gator Great" in the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame,[17] and was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.[6]

On October 4, 2015, Walk died of an unspecified blood disease.[18]

Filmograpy

Television

Year Title Role Notes
1972 The New Dick Van Dyke Show Himself episode "Chef Mike"

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Bruce Weber (October 5, 2015), "Neal Walk, Who Rebounded Coast to Coast, Dies at 67", The New York Times
  2. ^ The 100 Greatest Jews in Sports: Ranked According to Achievement – B. P. Robert Stephen Silverman
  3. ^ The Big Book of Jewish Sports Heroes: An Illustrated Compendium of Sports ... – Peter S. Horvitz
  4. ^ Day by Day in Jewish Sports History – Bob Wechsler
  5. ^ Sports | Legends | Nostalgia | History
  6. ^ a b c d "Former Florida Gators and NBA standout Neal Walk dies at 67" | Miami Herald
  7. ^ Norm Carlson Looks Back.. – Neal Walk – Florida Gators
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."U.S. Cage Team For Maccabiah". Jewish Post. April 25, 1969.
  9. ^ a b AJHS honors state's Jewish athletes Script error: No such module "webarchive"., January 5, 2001
  10. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rosen, Charley (2017). The Chosen Game: A Jewish Basketball History. University of Nebraska Press. p. 141.
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Neal Walk".
  12. ^ All time scorers - Neal Walk Template:In lang
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Neal Walk".
  14. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Former Phoenix Suns center Neal Walk dies at 67".
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Neal Walk". Basketball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
  16. ^ Former Phoenix Suns center Neal Walk dies at 67
  17. ^ F Club, Hall of Fame, "Gator Greats". Retrieved December 13, 2014.
  18. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Former Gators star Neal Walk dies".

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