INVENTING LUKE by Steve Rivera
He watches. He waits. He learns. And drawing on gifts that can’t be taught, this “regular guy” creates excellence.
Basketball has been part of Luke Walton’s life from his first breath. He lives it and has loved it since his days as a toddler. He’s growing up with three brothers who play the game their famous father, Bill, a former UCLA standout and NBA great, played. What if Walton, a 6-foot-8 Arizona junior, didn’t have basketball? What would he do?
“I don’t think I know what I would try to do yet,” said Walton, one of the Wildcats’ go-to guys this season. “This is the only thing I know. I do other things, but I do those just to have fun.” Other things? Play board games. Play spades. Bowling.
“Man, I’m just a regular guy,” said Walton, a family studies major who will turn 22 on March 28. “I’m sure I’ll do something one day. I just don’t know what… maybe work with kids. Maybe teach them how to play or something like that. There’s nothing good to write (about me). I’m boring.”
Not according to those who know him. They say whatever Walton decides to do, he’ll do it well-as he does basketball well, creating plays and dissecting defenses with savvy and craftiness.
Walton is averaging 15.9 points, 7.2 points and 6.3 assists per game for the No. 3-seeded Wildcats, who face No. 2 seed Oklahoma here today in the West Regional semifinals in the NCAA Tournament.
He’s the ultimate on-court ad-libber, an improviser. Another reason he’ll be good at whatever he tries.
“He fools people on the court like he does on the basketball court,” said Rich Paige, UA’s media man, who has gotten to know Walton well over the past two seasons. “He’s going to be good at whatever he decides to do.”
“Right now, he chooses to play basketball. He’d be a good spokesperson. He’s a good leader. What he chooses to do, he does well. People have underestimated him because they see this laid-back guy.”
Walton is a quick study, very cerebral when it comes to events and circumstances. He goes beyond the obvious as he looks for reasons things work and operate. He’d be the ultimate billiards player, not playing for the shot he has but for shots beyond. Chess, anyone?
“He’s actually great at chess,” said Susie Walton, Luke’s mom. “He’s been playing for years. You watch him play, and he’d look at the board and know what his next three or four moves would be. That’s how he approaches everything.”
Susie recalled Luke going to older brother Nathan’s games in junior high and he’d just watch. By the time he was on the team he knew all the plays. The same thing happened to Walton the first year he was at Arizona. After suffering a broken right foot, he watched and observed, taking in everything.
“Lute (Olson) even said that Luke hadn’t missed a beat because he watched and learned,” Susie said of her son’s return the next season. “That’s just who and how he is. He just figures it out.”
If Olson has said it once, he’s said it a thousand times this season: “What Luke does, you don’t teach. He understands so well what is needed and not only in his play but what is needed with the encouragement of our younger guys.”
Walton’s work with the younger guys has also been special.
“He just has a knack for relating to people,” said Paige. “He just has a way about him, making people feel at ease.”
Maybe post-basketball, Walton will be an artist.
“He has an artistic side he’s not even aware of,” said Susie. “He finds the excellence out of art. I think he’d be an amazing interpreter of art.”
“He’ll find the beauty and bring it out..”
Susie already has suggested that next year he take some art history classes to become more eclectic, more cultured.
If art isn’t the answer, perhaps being a radio talk show host is.
“He’d be great at that because he can find what needs to be found,” she said. “He draws things out of people.”
But he would still be in the shadows of his famous father, who is a college and pro basketball television analyst.
“But it wouldn’t be the same,” said Susie, who is long divorced from Bill. “His dad views it as he sees it, and oftentimes people don’t agree with Bill because he puts a lot of judgement into it. Luke wouldn’t find the judgment.”
“He’d find the excellence. That’s what makes him different from his father.” Or perhaps Luke might be a businessman?
“One of his brothers could do the planning of it, but Luke could strategize about it,” Susie said. “He’d know how to make the business work.”
Whatever Luke -or any of the Walton brothers- decides to do is fine with Bill. Just be productive.
“What I’ve tried to teach my four sons is that they be responsible for creating their own life,” Bill said in a recent interview. “They are responsible for creating their own fun. The environment they have grown up in has brought them a life of basketball, and it’s a big influence on how they play the game.”
He watches. He waits. He learns. And, drawing on gifts that can’t be taught, this ‘regular guy’ creates excellence.