Neal Walk
Hapoel Ramat Gan | |||||||||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||
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Career NBA statistics | |||||||||||||||
Points | 7,157 (12.6 ppg) | ||||||||||||||
Rebounds | 4,392 (7.7 rpg) | ||||||||||||||
Assists | 1,214 (2.1 apg) | ||||||||||||||
Stats at NBA.com | |||||||||||||||
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com | |||||||||||||||
Medals
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Neal Eugene Walk (July 29, 1948 – October 4, 2015) was an American college and professional
Early life
Walk was born in
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.
Walk is the only Suns player besides Charles Barkley to average 20 points and 12 rebounds in a season.[14]
NBA career statistics
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 | — | 24.8 | .451 | — | .765 | 8.2 | 1.4 | – | – | 12.9 |
1971–72 | Phoenix | 81 | — | 26.4 | .479 | — | .744 | 8.2 | 1.9 | – | – | 15.7 |
1972–73 | Phoenix | 81 | — | 38.4 | .466 | — | .786 | 12.4 | 3.5 | – | – | 20.2 |
1973–74 | Phoenix | 82 | — | 31.1 | .460 | — | .791 | 10.2 | 4.0 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 16.8 |
1974–75 | New Orleans | 37 | — | 23.0 | .422 | — | .800 | 7.1 | 2.7 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 9.9 |
New York | 30 | — | 9.1 | .409 | — | .880 | 2.6 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 3.9 | |
1975–76 | New York | 82 | — | 16.3 | .432 | — | .798 | 4.7 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 7.4 |
1976–77 | New York | 11 | — | 12.3 | .491 | — | .857 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 5.6 |
Career [15] | 568 | — | 24.4 | .459 | — | .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 | — | 12.6 | .395 | — | .750 | 7.0 | 0.4 | – | – | 8.0 |
1975 | New York | 3 | — | 13.0 | .500 | — | — | 1.7 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 3.3 |
Career | 8 | — | 12.8 | .415 | — | .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
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
On October 4, 2015, Walk died of an unspecified blood disease.[18]
See also
- Florida Gators
- List of Florida Gators in the NBA
- List of select Jewish basketball players
- List of NCAA Division I men's basketball season rebounding leaders
- List of University of Florida alumni
- List of University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members
References
- ^ a b c Bruce Weber (October 5, 2015), "Neal Walk, Who Rebounded Coast to Coast, Dies at 67", The New York Times
- ^ The 100 Greatest Jews in Sports: Ranked According to Achievement – B. P. Robert Stephen Silverman
- ^ The Big Book of Jewish Sports Heroes: An Illustrated Compendium of Sports ... – Peter S. Horvitz
- ^ Day by Day in Jewish Sports History – Bob Wechsler
- ^ Sports | Legends | Nostalgia | History
- ^ a b c d "Former Florida Gators and NBA standout Neal Walk dies at 67" | Miami Herald
- ^ Norm Carlson Looks Back.. – Neal Walk – Florida Gators
- ^ "U.S. Cage Team For Maccabiah". Jewish Post. April 25, 1969.
- ^ a b AJHS honors state's Jewish athletes Archived June 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, January 5, 2001
- ^ Rosen, Charley (2017). The Chosen Game: A Jewish Basketball History. University of Nebraska Press. p. 141.
- ^ "Neal Walk".
- ^ All time scorers - Neal Walk (in Hebrew)
- ^ "Neal Walk".
- ^ a b "Former Phoenix Suns center Neal Walk dies at 67".
- ^ "Neal Walk". Basketball-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Former Phoenix Suns center Neal Walk dies at 67
- ^ F Club, Hall of Fame, "Gator Greats". Retrieved December 13, 2014.
- ^ "Former Gators star Neal Walk dies".