The Phoenix Suns do not have many people who can claim working in the organization for about two-thirds of its 46-year history and there are only two players who can claim a 20-point, 12-rebound season for the Suns.

Neal Walk’s legacy includes both.

Walk passed away Sunday night at age 67. He was at a Phoenix hospital after being in poor health in recent weeks for various medical reasons, 28 years after surviving surgery to remove a tumor on his spinal cord.

Walk is best known for being the player whom the Suns drafted No. 2 overall in 1969 after losing a coin flip to Milwaukee for the right to pick first and take Lew Alcindor, who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a five-time Most Valuable Player.

Away from unfair comparisons to Abdul-Jabbar, Walk had an exemplary five-year run at center in Phoenix and played eight NBA seasons before finishing his pro basketball career in Israel and Italy.

“My answer on the coin toss was always, ‘I didn’t toss it and I didn’t make the call. I just play basketball,’ " Walk once told azcentral sports.

And he played it well.

Walk is the only Suns player besides Charles Barkley to average 20 points and 12 rebounds in a season. The 6-foot-10 center did so in his fourth year (1972-73), when he averaged 20.2 points, 12. 4 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 38.4 minutes per game. His 1,009 rebounds that season is nine shy of the franchise record set by Paul Silas. He also had a 26-rebound game that was one off Silas’ franchise record.

Walk was a gritty rebounder with a left-handed shooting touch and a hook shot. He was an exemplary passer for a big man to the point that he led the Suns in assists (4.0 per game) during his final Suns season in 1973-74.

The unfair shadow of Abdul-Jabbar’s greatness never left Walk, even though Walk held his own with the greats at times. Walk posted a career-high 42-point game against Abdul-Jabbar in 1972. He still was booed at home, where the lack of support affected him.

“People didn’t appreciate how good he was on the court,” said Steve Rich, Walk’s longtime friend and former roommate. “He felt unappreciated. Instead of appreciating him for what he could do, they always compared him to Jabbar. He was as smart as any athlete I’ve ever met. Neal like it when he was seen that way.”

Walk, a native of Miami Beach, Fla., had been the first All-American at University of Florida, where he was the first basketball player to have his number retired.

The Suns traded Walk in the 1974 offseason to New Orleans, but he was not the same player after shedding 25 pounds because of a switch to a vegetarian diet. He dropped to a 7.2 scoring average in 1974-75, when he was traded to New York. The Knicks waived him after 11 games in 1976.

After playing in Europe, Walk could not find steady work after basketball. He legally changed his name to “Joshua Hawk” as a part of a spiritual journey and admitted drug use during his career.

In 1987, a tingly feeling in his feet prompted a doctor’s visit that led to surgery to remove bone chips in his neck. During that surgery, it was discovered that a disk was pressing against his spinal cord with a lump between his shoulder blades. A subsequent surgery removed the knuckle-sized mass, which was benign, but he lost use of his legs.

Walk was considered an “incomplete paraplegic” who still experienced leg spasms.

Living in Phoenix after the surgery, Jerry Colangelo reached out to Walk to bring him back into the franchise. Colangelo was the general manager who drafted Walk and coached him for the last 44 games of his rookie year and the last 75 games of Walk’s best season in 1972-73.

Colangelo created a Suns community relations job for Walk and arranged for him to receive a wheelchair-accessible van. Walk worked in community relations, giving inspirational speeches and putting on camps for athletes with disabilities until 1999, when he became the Suns’ assistant photo archivist and kept that job until he was fired in 2012.

“Disabled is a funky, funky word,'' Walk told The Arizona Republic. ''Anything you get stuck in your mind, you'll be. Me, I'm a wheelchair user.''

Walk became a “Wheelchair Athlete of the Year” in 1990 when he was invited to the White House. He was honored with the 1995 Gene Autry Courage Award and was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

“No matter how a person came across their malady, people with maladies have hearts and souls and feelings, and they're capable,” Walk once said in a 1993 speech.

Walk is survived by his wife, Georgia, and a brother.
