This is an opinion column.

I don’t have a singular Bill Walton story. Not does it seem that we, unlike dang near everyone else of a certain generation in the eco-system of the NBA, took a photograph together during the myriad years we shared.

I do have a story, actually—an article I wrote about him in the spring of 1986 when the Boston Celtics were on the cusp of winning another NBA title, and I was a still a young reporter for The New York Times.

Walton had already earned Hall of Fame credentials—an NBA title with the 1977 Portland TrailBlazers. one of only two three-time college Player of the Year James Naismith winners, NBA MVP, NBA Finals MVP, and NBA Sixth Man of the Year. All before two crippling feet.

Now he was backup center for one of the greatest teams ever. And he couldn’t stop grinning, though he tried.

It was the off day of the NBA Finals =against the hella talented Houston Rockets, led by to-be Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon and 7-foot-4-inch Ralph Sampson. Boston was up 3 games to 1. On the cusp of the franchise’s 16th championship banner.

Walton, then 33, was merely grateful. For the opportunity. For the chance to be a champion again.

Here’s the last graph of my Times story:

It has been nine years since Walton has experienced that feeling [ of winning an NBA title]. If it should come again Thursday evening, would he see it as a reward for all he has endured? ‘’I don’t know if I’d use that word,’’ he said, pausing. ‘’I figure it’ll be just another day, but a special day. A very special day.”

Bill Walton was indeed very special. A very special person.

Oh, he was a special player. Without a doubt among the game’s top 10 centers—in no order today: Kareem, Wilt, Russell, Shaq, Hakeem, Moses, Walton, Ewing, and David Robinson. (Hit me later, years later, about Nikola Jokic.) That’s notwithstanding the flotilla of injuries that robbed Walton of his peak. Without those, I’m talking … top five.

He was the best passing big man, end of conversation. A point-center before anyone knew the term. Not even arguing with you on that. Yet he was so much more, in every facet of the game.

That’s not my Bill Walton story, though. See, I never chronicled his on-court greatness. I began covering the league two years after that 1977 title. By then, he was a San Diego Clipper—having demanded a trade from Portland after losing trust in how the franchise treated injuries. Not just his. Other Blazers, too.

He was a Clipper. You know what happens to Clippers. He was in purgatory. For 6 uneventful and often immobile seasons until he joined Boston, after failing a physical with the Lakers, who instead signed Walton’s former Portland teammate Maurice Lucas. (For whom Walton’s son Luke is named.)

No, Walton was a very special person, too. He was joy. He was present. He was life.

You’ve not seen an image of him since Walton’s death was announced Monday without his big smile. His big-teeth smile.

We crossed paths many times after his final playing seasons and through his years of, well, being very special Bill. He almost always picked up the phone or returned the call. Always with a voice that made you feel the smile. See the big teeth.

Even while broadcasting basketball games for various networks, he was Bill Walton, a very special person. He almost always eschewed traditional broadcast blazer/suit attire, instead donning a tie-dyed tee symbolic of Deadheads, the die-hardest fans of the iconic rock group Grateful Dead.

And always being Bill Walton—admonishing the tepid big men of a new era to dunk instead of deploying a less physical move around the basket. “Throw it down,” he would say. “Throw it down.”

I was not a Deadhead, but, man, I wish I’d gone to a Dead concert with him.

As a favor Walton once called my then-teenaged son to wish him a surprise happy birthday. He left a voice mail when my son didn’t pick up. “I couldn’t believe I missed that call,” my son shared, now 30 years old, Monday—the day we learned Bill Walton had passed on, the ultimate assist, at the age of 71 after a long cancer battle.

Walton once said: “I learn from yesterday, I dream about tomorrow. But I try to make today my masterpiece.”

Every day, Bill Walton threw it down—with a masterful, big-teeth’d, Deadhead smile.

I’m a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, as well as the Lede. Tell me what you think at rjohnson@al.com, and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.