See Jimmy Walker in the 1972 All Star Game and the 1975 NBA Playoffs
If you’re reading Friar Basketball there probably isn’t much I can share that you haven’t already read, or seen for yourself, about Jimmy Walker. The Roxbury, MA native is the greatest Friar of them all — the only player to go number one overall from a New England college when he went first to Detroit in 1967, a player who averaged over 25 points per game in three years at PC, and over 30 a night as a senior.
Walker went on to reach the NBA All Star game twice in his career. In 1970, both Walker and fellow Providence graduate Lenny Wilkens played in the All Star Game, marking the only time in which two Friars played in the game together. Walker also made it in 1972.
After it was announced last week that Walker would be inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in November, I thought about how I wished there was more footage available of Walker for those of us who didn’t get to experience his greatness firsthand.
This also led to doing some digging on Walker, and I was able find his appearance in the 1972 All Star Game, as well as a 26 point outburst while he played for the Kansas City Kings against the Chicago Bulls in the 1975 NBA playoffs.
The ‘72 All Star game is filled with legends of the game. Walker’s West club featured the young Kareem Abdul Jabbar (who, ironically, was nearly booed out of the LA Forum during introductions — Jabbar was a Buck at the time who had just gotten into a fight days early in a game in which Milwaukee snapped the Lakers’ NBA record 33 game winning-streak), an aging Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, the dazzling Connie Hawkins, and other Hall of Famers like Bob Lanier and Elvin Hayes.
The East featured the three Celtics that carried the franchise in the post-Bill Russell era — John Havlicek, second year center Dave Cowens, and Jojo White. They also had Clyde Frazier, Wes Unseld, Billy Cunningham, and Dave DeBusschere, yet the East lacked the star power of the West.
The game went down to the wire, and the highlights below consist mostly of Walker, but also include Jerry West’s last-second game winner, a few dunks from Chamberlain, and a pair of beautiful layups by Hawkins. And talk about a commentary duo — Bill Russell and Keith Jackson were on the call.
The video of the ‘75 playoffs gives a deeper look at Walker as a player, simply because he had the ball in his hands much more.
I also included the full games in the break below.
full games taken down : (