1960s: Neal Walk, #2 pick 1969 NBA Draft
Good old Neal Walk. All the kids are rocking Neal Walk jerseys while they do their dance
videos on Tik Tok these days right?
Walk had no real competition for this distinction as the Suns franchise inaugural year in 1968
meant there were two drafts to choose from.
Want to hear a crazy stats per basketball reference? The Suns had 33 draft picks in 1968 and 1969 combined. Guess how many of them even played one minute of actual NBA basketball.
Nine.
There were 20 rounds in the 1969 NBA Draft. I know that scouting departments weren’t really
much of a thing then and teams were blindly throwing darts at a board, but at what point to teams
just draft someone whose name they are fond of? Kind of like how amateurs bet on horses.
I promise I will get to Neal Walk’s career, but the 1969 NBA Draft is really one of the infamous
moments in Phoenix Suns and NBA history.
There was a coin flip between the Suns and Milwaukee Bucks to see who would get the No.1
pick and draft a certain center from UCLA, you may have heard of him…he is only the leading
scorer in NBA history.
His name was Lew Alcindor, but you know him as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Now there actually may be some kid with a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar jersey on doing
dancing videos on Tik Tok in 2020.
Anyway, while you are likely distracted envisioning an alternate universe where Kareem led the
Phoenix Suns to multiple NBA championships, here is a break-down of Neal Walk career stats in
five seasons with the Suns from 1969 to 1974:
PTS: 14.7 REB: 8.9 AST: 2.4 FG: 46.5% FT%: 75.8%
So definitely not a stiff, but not exactly the sort of star you are hoping to get with the #2 pick
in a draft, especially when the guy who went #1 that you could have been, with a little more
luck, a 6-time NBA Champion, 6-time NBA MVP, 2-time NBA Finals MVP, and 19-time NBA All-Star.