On this day in 1974: Bill Walton’s NBA debut — 24 rebounds in a four-overtime Blazers win over Cleveland

Fifty-two years ago this Sunday, Bill Walton played his first NBA game, and it took four overtimes to finish. On Friday, October 18, 1974, at Memorial Coliseum in Portland, the 21-year-old No. 1 overall pick grabbed 24 rebounds, scored 18 points and blocked 4 shots before fouling out, and the Trail Blazers outlasted the Cleveland Cavaliers 131-129 in front of 11,409 fans.

It was a lot of basketball for an opening night: 68 minutes of game time, two starters past the 60-minute mark, and a rookie center who had to watch the finish from the bench after fouling out.

• Result: Trail Blazers 131, Cavaliers 129 (4OT) — Friday, October 18, 1974, Memorial Coliseum, Portland. Season opener for both teams.
• By period: Cleveland 20-20-30-27, then 8-8-8-8 in the four overtimes; Portland 22-22-23-30, then 8-8-8-10. The game was tied 97-97 after regulation, 105-105 after one overtime, 113-113 after two and 121-121 after three.
• Bill Walton (Portland): 18 points (7-18 FG, 4-6 FT), 24 rebounds (6 offensive), 5 assists, 2 steals, 4 blocks and 6 fouls in 46 minutes — NBA debut.
• Other Portland leaders: Sidney Wicks 29 points and 15 rebounds, John Johnson 29 points on 13-21 shooting with 11 rebounds, Geoff Petrie 24 points in 61 minutes, player-coach Lenny Wilkens 15 points and 10 assists in 60 minutes, LaRue Martin 10 points and 11 rebounds off the bench.
• Cleveland leaders: Austin Carr 34 points (15-31 FG) and 9 assists, Dick Snyder 25 on 12-21 shooting, Bingo Smith 20 points and 12 rebounds, Jim Chones 18 points and 19 rebounds, Jim Cleamons 9 points and 9 assists in 49 minutes.
• The difference: Cleveland actually made more field goals, 54 to 52. Portland won it at the line, 27-39 against 21-27, and on the glass, 75-67.

A rookie in the middle of a marathon

Walton’s line was the kind of debut the Blazers had been dreaming about since the spring. He controlled the defensive glass with 18 rebounds at that end, passed out of the post, and was credited with 4 blocks in only the second season the NBA kept blocks as an official stat. His shooting was ordinary, 7 of 18, and his foul trouble was real. He picked up his sixth foul with the game still undecided, and the Blazers had to close it out without him.

They managed it because the veterans never left the floor. Petrie played 61 of the 68 minutes, Wilkens 60 and Wicks 58. Wilkens, 37, was in his first season running the Blazers as player-coach, a job he had also held in Seattle earlier in his career. Portland won the fourth overtime 10-8.

The man Walton was sharing the middle with that night also had a link to his past. Cleveland’s starting center, Steve Patterson, was the UCLA center who came between Lew Alcindor and Walton in Westwood. He played 29 minutes, scored 9 points and, like Walton, fouled out.

Won on a coin toss

Portland only had Walton because of a coin. The Blazers and the Philadelphia 76ers had finished with the worst records in their conferences in 1973-74, and on March 27, 1974, the two clubs flipped for the No. 1 pick at a league owners’ meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Commissioner J. Walter Kennedy tossed the coin, 76ers owner Irv Kosloff called heads, and it came up tails. Blazers president Herman Sarkowsky was standing by.

Portland made Walton the first pick of the draft on May 28, 1974, and signed him to a five-year deal estimated at more than $2 million. By Walton’s own later telling, the one thing he insisted on in the contract was that nobody could tell him when to cut his hair or when to shave. He was coming off two NCAA titles at UCLA, the 88-game winning streak and a 44-point, 21-of-22 shooting night in the 1973 championship game.

The No. 2 pick debuted the same night

Philadelphia used the second pick on Providence forward Marvin Barnes. Barnes never played for the 76ers that year. He signed with the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis instead, and his pro debut came on the same night as Walton’s: 21 points on 10-of-17 shooting and 17 rebounds in a 97-92 loss to the Memphis Sounds in the Spirits’ first game. Barnes went on to average 24.0 points and 15.6 rebounds and win ABA Rookie of the Year. The top two picks of the 1974 draft both turned pro on October 18, in two different leagues, half a continent apart.

Meanwhile in Chicago: the first quadruple-double

Walton was not even the biggest box score of the night. At Chicago Stadium, Nate Thurmond played his first game for the Bulls, six weeks after Golden State traded him to Chicago for Clifford Ray and a 1975 first-round pick, and finished with 22 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocks in a 120-115 overtime win over Atlanta. It was the first quadruple-double in NBA history. Only Alvin Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson have recorded one since.

The two box scores connect again a year later. On November 27, 1975, Chicago traded Thurmond to Cleveland in a deal that sent Steve Patterson, the center Walton faced in his debut, to the Bulls.

What came next

The four-overtime win did not set the tone for the season. Portland lost at home to Detroit 122-99 the next night, and injuries limited Walton to 35 games as a rookie. He averaged 12.8 points, 12.6 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.7 blocks, and the Blazers finished 38-44, third in the Pacific Division, out of the playoffs.

Two years later he was the best player on a champion. In 1976-77 Walton led the league in rebounds and blocks per game and was named Finals MVP as Portland beat Philadelphia for the franchise’s only title. In 1977-78 he was the league MVP. Then the foot injuries took over: he missed four full seasons across the rest of his career, played for the San Diego and Los Angeles Clippers, and finally won a second championship as the Sixth Man of the Year on the 1985-86 Celtics.

He finished with 468 regular-season games, two titles, an MVP and a Finals MVP, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993 and was named to the NBA’s 50th and 75th anniversary teams. He died on May 27, 2024, at 71. It all started on a night that needed four overtimes, 24 rebounds and a coin that landed tails. Box scores and season figures above come from Basketball-Reference.