Boston Herald: McHale Enshrined (good stuff)

["Ozersky, Joshua A" <OzerskyJA@corning.com>]

Given the chance, Bill Walton would tell this particular war story on a daily basis.



Scene: Late in the 1985-86 season at another Boston Celtics practice. Walton and Kevin McHale, two of the most talented and irreverent big men in NBA history, are pushing and shoving through another mouthy, pre-practice game of one-on-one. 



Finally, coach K.C. Jones gets his belly full. 



``We're going to settle this right here,'' Jones said. 



With that, Walton and McHale square off as the rest of the Celtics team and a handful of the franchise's legends - Red Auerbach, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens - gather around. 



It wasn't a grudge match over Celtics jersey No. 32, which Walton had to forsake when he arrived in Boston. It was simply Walton, the redheaded center near the end of his career, reaching for a little glory against a friend, one of the NBA's most dominant players of the 1980s. 



``Here I was with a broken-down body, really couldn't play anymore,'' Walton said. ``To beat Kevin McHale in front of everybody, to where I could talk trash to him for the rest of our lives, was phenomenal.''



Walton figures to tell that story a few more times, right up to the night in October when McHale is enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. McHale - a former star with the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and the Boston Celtics and now the Minnesota Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations - was one of 13 nominees elected by the Honors Committee for the 1999 class. The only other selection was Georgetown coaching legend John Thompson. 



It comes in McHale's first year of eligibility. 



``Kevin McHale is a very special person, the kind the Hall of Fame is reserved for,'' said Walton, who could wind up as McHale's presenter. ``Kevin had a complete game based on skills, whereas most big guys based their games on power. He had the ability to do, really, anything he wanted to do. He had the footwork. He could go up and under. He took people inside to what he called 'the torture chamber.' He was virtually unstoppable.''



Walton paused and then turned wistful. 



``Two of my favorite people in the world come from Hibbing, Minnesota,'' he said. ``Bob Dylan and Kevin McHale. It really has been a long, strange trip.''