Luke Walton: Equal parts champion, beach volleyball bum, Zen Master in new Lakers coach

For warm-ups, they run a layup line and shoot hoops on a portable basket they drag onto the sand. They call their tent the Forum Club. Under a cadet blue sky, the toned bronze renegades of Manhattan Beach volleyball draw the attention of thousands of onlookers as they rush onto the sand, bearing the symbols of their peculiar faith.

They wear afro-style wigs and golden Lakers jerseys in strict adherence to the scripture that guides their devotion: the ’80s Chevy Chase comedy film “Fletch.”

In the middle of the highly competitive and even more irregular spectacle that unfolds every July, the Charlie Saikley 6-Man Beach Volleyball Touament, is an easily recognized 6-foot-8 player who is a menacing protector on the front line and an able passer, just as he was as an NBA player.

The coiled aubu mop is cropped tighter than when he was a basketball player, but Luke Walton remains the portrait of a laidback beach bro.

“A slow-talking Califoian,” says Bruce Fraser, a Golden State Warriors assistant.

“Every time I see Luke,” longtime Lakers trainer Gary Vitti says, “it’s always at the beach and he’s always full of sand.”

This is the man who late Sunday night, one way or another, will become the 26th head coach of the Lakers. Following Game 7 of the Finals, Walton, the Golden State Warriors lead assistant coach, will either celebrate the culmination of one of the greatest seasons in NBA history, or mou his team’s historic collapse from a commanding 3-1 series lead. Either way, he will gather himself, and tu his attention to the challenges facing his new team.

Walton is uniquely positioned to confront them.

For generations, the organization has embodied Hollywood. The Lakers are Magic and Showtime, a courtside halo of stars of television and film.

The most Hollywood thing about Walton, however, might just be the fact that he plays on a party-loving volleyball team that celebrates a cult classic.

Instead, he represents the other pillar of L.A.’s glamorous reputation: the beach.

Walton, who declined to be interviewed amid the Warriors playoff run, is the laid-back third son (of four) of basketball’s hippie hero, Bill Walton. By association, he elicits the same hazy images as his dad: a tie-dyed Deadhead hanging out in a backyard teepee. His contribution to the Warriors’ coaches music playlist includes the Grateful Dead.

“If you were first to meet him you’d think, ‘That’s the biggest hippie stoner I’ve ever seen in my life,’” says Danny Boehle, who owns Fonz’s, a popular Manhattan Beach restaurant that Walton frequents. “Because he’s like, ‘Hey man, basketball’s cool.’ He’s that kind of guy.”

Walton might be the video game generation’s first NBA head coach, but he’s hardly Jeff Spicoli, tumbling out of his smoke-filled van on the first day of classes at Ridgemont High.

His easygoing nature is balanced out with a fierce competitiveness. He once played through a broken hand to help his volleyball team to the final of a Labor Day touament in Hermosa Beach.

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“He plays it like it’s a professional sport,” says Nate Walton, one of Luke’s three brothers, “because he gets really into the competition of it.”

As a Warriors assistant the last two seasons, star players confided in Walton as a friend but regarded him with the ultimate respect when he served as the interim head coach for 43 games last season.

For a Lakers organization that spent the last several years gazing wistfully into its storied past – paying a premium so Kobe Bryant could enjoy a farewell tour and trotting out legends Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when Byron Scott was hired as head coach in 2014 – Walton might just bring a cultural revolution.

“He’s not Pat Riley,” Nate Walton says, referencing the coach who defined the Lakers’ 1980s championship era with power suits and slicked-back hair, polished tributes to precision and fortitude.

Walton’s brother, who holds degrees from Princeton and Stanford, sees the Lakers’ decision to hire his brother as consistent with a cultural shift throughout society, one spurred on by the tech industry across the San Francisco Bay from Oakland, where formal is out and creative and unique is in.

“You could make an argument,” he says, “that the big-wig in the suit is no longer what’s cool. It’s the guy who’s wearing a hoodie and stays true to himself.”

The simple things

When Walton’s 11-year playing career ended in 2013 after two seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he retued to his adopted home of Manhattan Beach, the affluent surfer’s enclave nestled 2 miles south of the Lakers’ El Segundo headquarters and about 20 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles. That summer, he married his longtime girlfriend, former Arizona volleyball player Bre Ladd.

He filled his time with the retired NBA player’s version of odd jobs: A player development gig with the Lakers’ D-League affiliate, and some work as a studio analyst for Time Waer Cable SportsNet.

Walton, then 33, forged a daily routine of working out with former Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart, whose NFL career ended the same year. The two trained as if they were still professional athletes, “because that’s what we know,” Leinart says.

Walton practiced yoga at a studio owned by Cavaliers forward Richard Jefferson, a college teammate and the best man at his wedding. Walton and Leinart assembled a team of friends to play in a recreation basketball league that draws many former college players.

“It’s not like we were in some slouch league,” Leinart says.

Walton mostly coasted, pulling up for 3-pointers in transition, playing casual defense. When an opponent on one of the league’s better teams managed to get under Walton’s skin, however, he responded with a 36-point half in a semifinal playoff victory.

They went on to win the league title, with Walton hitting the go-ahead 3-pointer in the championship game and sealing the victory with a game-winning steal.

That this championship was celebrated at a pizza parlor rather than with a parade through downtown Los Angeles didn’t matter. Even in childhood, Walton’s competitiveness came out in board games, video games, and ping-pong.

“I’ve played all those things with Luke hundreds of times,” Nate Walton says, “and it’s always the same level. He’s not laid back at all when it comes to the competition.”

While much of that is passed down from Walton’s famous father, his mother, Susie Walton, is a former athlete, as well. When she lost five straight volleyball matches last month, she says she stewed for hours. She nurtured that drive in her son, who as a kid growing up in San Diego would play board games against himself if no one accepted his challenge.

“He’s really one of the biggest competitors I’ve been around,” Warriors general manager Bob Myers says, “and also one that’s been able to calibrate appropriately the place that basketball has in our lives.”

Walton’s second-grade teacher told Susie that she should let Luke win at games, to build self-esteem. Told this, a young Luke scowled and said, “Play me.”

“His dad taught him to play chess,” Susie says. “(Luke) could see three or four moves out. He has that thing about him, where he can see something and see what can happen as a result of what’s going on in that moment, and I think that’s one of his favorite parts of coaching. Watching what other teams do with their players and then matching it. Like chess.”

Walton and his brothers did not grow up lounging on the beach. It was a place to go swimming. Nate Walton says the idea of Luke as a beach bum is a misconception.

“There’s a simplicity to Luke’s interests that is pretty refreshing,” he says. “He likes the simple things, generally, in life.”

Hanging out with his wife and 2-year-old son, Lawson. Walking the dog. Wearing sweats and watching movies. He is nothing if not a creature of habit.

As a player, he and other young Lakers like Devean George, Brian Cook and Kareem Rush comprised the “bench mob,” a gang of friends who on the night before a road game religiously went to dinner and a movie.

From Toronto to Indiana to Cleveland. From Memphis to San Antonio. They were so rigid about their relaxation routine that if no new movie appealed to them, they would go to the theater and watch one they had already seen.

That first year, 2003-04, George estimates they saw “Along Came Polly” eight times in theaters.

“It was crazy how many times we saw that thing,” says George, who retired in 2010.

Volleyball fits neatly into Walton’s new routine. Along the way, he’s become a formidable player.

During that gap year hanging out with Leinart, Walton became more and more committed to volleyball, playing nearly every day and embracing a sport that was easier on his body than basketball; a game his chronically aching back allowed him to play.

He had leaed the fundamentals of the sport as a child from Greg Lee, the beach volleyball legend who was a UCLA basketball teammate of Bill Walton’s, but he did not take it up seriously until years later, late in his playing career with the Lakers. In doing so, he carried on a tradition of hoops stars keeping their competitive juices pumping on the sand. Players like his father and Wilt Chamberlain were fixtures.

“That whole era of hippie basketball players were all volleyball players,” says Boehle, the Manhattan Beach restauranteur. “Well, what better place than the beach volleyball capital of the world?”

Boehle sits in mesh shorts and a golf shirt in his restaurant, hours before it opens for dinner service. His chair groans as he rocks on its back legs and describes the stream of sports celebrities that have come through since it opened in 1997. Tiger Woods used to be a regular. Phil Jackson and Jeanie Buss are known to stop by. Over the years, Fonz’s has been a hangout for Walton and his buddies. Walton always orders a rib-eye steak or a wedge salad.

“Hey, that was Mia Hamm,” Boehle says, nodding toward the restaurant’s bay window as the former soccer star strolls by. She and her All-Star husband, Nomar Garciaparra, used to come in frequently, he says.

The area provides a comfortable, fulfilling lifestyle and, for someone who has collected an NBA salary for 11 years, one that is easy to maintain. Perpetual summer, however, has its limits.

“There comes a point,” Leinart says, “and I think a lot of athletes are the same, where it’s just hard to stay idle for too long. You want to do something. You want to feel like you’re being competitive. You want something that challenges you.

“You could always tell coaching is something he wanted to do.”

Balancing act

Five months have passed since Walton’s stint as the Warriors’ interim head coach, when Steve Kerr missed the first 43 games of last season after offseason back surgery caused a spinal fluid leak. Kerr tabbed Walton, a second-year assistant, to be his temporary replacement. Walton guided the Warriors to an NBA record with 24 straight wins to start the season and was named coach of the month in November. They went 39-4 before Kerr retued.

It was early in the season that fans and analysts began speculating about Scott’s future and whether Walton could eventually be the man to replace him. Scott and the Lakers were aimless, compiling losses at a record rate. The man hired to guide the Lakers through the end of Bryant’s career was being second-guessed on a nightly basis by the national media and sometimes his own players.

He openly criticized No. 2 overall draft pick D’Angelo Russell and regularly lamented his own struggles to communicate with young players. He had an old-school mentality, honed under the watch of his drill sergeant mentor, Riley.

“If you’re asking a guy every day to just hit this button,” says Devean George, Walton’s former Lakers teammate, “and you’re going off on somebody every day, it kind of becomes noise. As opposed to people actually hearing your message.”

Walton, meanwhile, was seamlessly communicating Kerr’s directives to the record-setting Warriors. Players admired his command and thoughtfulness.

“Obviously, we can be friends and whatever,” All-Star forward Draymond Green says. “You can talk to me and I can talk to you, but at the end of the day, business is business. He does a great job of balancing that. I don’t think it’s a very easy thing to do.”

The skill can be traced down the Califoia coast to Walton’s native San Diego, where as a fifth-grader he played in a three-on-three touament. Most kids linked up with friends from school or their neighborhood.

“Luke wasn’t like that,” Nate Walton says. “He had the best point guard from the bad neighborhood and he had the best player from Tijuana.”

Not only was Walton focused on assembling a team that would win, but he was comfortable being inclusive of different people and their unique personalities.

“It’s the reason he can relate to Draymond Green, to Klay Thompson,” Nate Walton says, “and hopefully why he’ll be able to relate to all these guys on the Lakers.”

With the Warriors, Walton was part of the new wave, a personification of Golden State’s joyful, democratic style of play. After decades of setting NBA trends, the Lakers decided their path back to relevance involved breaking off a branch of the defending champs’ culture and planting it at the front of their bench.

On April 24, after a 17-65 season, the Lakers informed Scott he would not retu as coach. Five days later, Walton was announced as his replacement.

With the Warriors’ season wrapping up, Walton will step into one of the most high-profile jobs in all of sports. His father, however, remains the family’s most recognizable member.

Prior to Game 5 of the Weste Conference finals at Oracle Arena, Bill Walton, 63, arrives in a blue hooded sweatshirt with the team’s golden Bay Bridge logo stamped on the front.

He sits courtside during pregame warm-ups, and quickly draws a crowd.

The elder Walton might be more famous now for his outlandish television commentary and Deadhead image than his NCAA and NBA championships or his 1978 NBA MVP trophy. The garrulous giant’s once-scraggly red hair has tued white. When he meets someone new, he introduces himself with a handshake and thunders, “I’m Bill.”

With a smile, he politely declines an interview about his son.

“I’m just a dad,” he says. “This is his story.”

Next Zen Master?

Luke Walton was never an awesome leaper or an especially quick basketball player. Like his father, however, he had a keen understanding of the sport. He knew the angles and could deliver the right pass on time.

“He was able to anticipate cuts and movements,” says Jarron Collins, a Warriors assistant coach who played against Walton in high school, college and in the NBA. “He saw the game.”

But the NBA? After an all-conference career at Arizona, Walton declared for the 2003 draft, considered one of the best in NBA history with superstars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade all going in the first five picks.

With pick No. 33, the Lakers, whose streak of three championships had ended that spring, selected Walton. Phil Jackson and the Lakers saw him as an ideal fit for the triangle offense, which, to function, requires savvy, versatile big men.

“If we didn’t run the triangle, he wouldn’t have been very successful,” Vitti says.

As a rookie, it was impossible for Walton to mask his limitations while playing with future Hall of Famers Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Gary Payton.

“He really wasn’t very gifted, other than his height,” Vitti says. “He couldn’t run, he couldn’t jump, he couldn’t shoot. You know what I mean? But he could play, and he competed at a very high level.”

Walton spent nine of his 11 seasons in the NBA with the Lakers, posting modest averages of 4.9 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists. He helped them win championships in 2009 and ’10.

From a personality standpoint, Walton was a revelation to a Lakers locker room weighed down by dueling egos and titanic personalities. Immediately, Walton had a way of defusing tense situations.

“He makes everybody around him feel very comfortable and feel very important,” says Alex McKechnie, who was the Lakers athletic performance coordinator from 2003-11 and now works for the Toronto Raptors.

Even then, Walton was the “sarcastic joker,” George says, always needling teammates before reverting to his mellow comfort zone.

“Even if you hear how he talks,” George says, “he’s just like, ‘Whatever, Dev.’”

George mimics Walton’s distinctive speech when saying this. He drops his delivery to a grating, rasping growl, like gravel crunching under the tires of a big rig.

In a city where celebrities are molded out of big personalities and pro athletes chase their own reality shows, Walton was an outlier. He was the only player in the locker room who, when injured, was not only tended to by the team’s training staff, but also received an alteative healing method that involves balancing out energy frequencies in his body.

“That really makes it sound too woo-wooey,” Susie Walton says, “and it’s not.”

She leaed of the practice, called radionics, when Bill played for the Boston Celtics from 1985-87. A practitioner called the team and said she believed she could help the fragile center with his ongoing host of injuries.

The elder Walton was not interested, but Susie was. For years, she made sure her sons received the treatment for various maladies, including Luke’s basketball injuries.

“I don’t know if my boys 100 percent believed in it, but they would let me do it,” she says.

George says the rest of the Lakers never minded Walton’s alteative tendencies.

In an NBA locker room, he says, “different is good.”

“I think the best thing anyone could say about a person is that they’re eccentric,” says Ron Adams, the Warriors’ veteran assistant coach. “It’s taken as a pejorative word at times, but eccentricity is a nice word. And he’s a good eccentric person.”

That’s a quality that connects Walton with the coach he spent the majority of his Lakers career playing under.

As Walton’s injuries piled up, causing him to miss significant time each season, Phil Jackson began warming to Walton as a future coach. Jackson took Walton under his wing, allowing him to sit in on coaches meetings and help game plan, the way former Knicks coach Red Holzman had done with Jackson when he was a young player.

Kobe Bryant teased Walton that he was the next Zen Master.

“He was an average player with a messed-up back,” Bryant cracked last season when Walton was at the Warriors’ helm. “I said, ‘Dude is this is not Phil. ... Dude, you’re a hippie, 6-9 or whatever it is.’ I used to rib him all that time about that. But honestly, he always had a brilliant mind, understanding flow and tempo and spacing and how to manage a team the right way and things like that.”

“I think Phil saw a lot of himself in Luke,” Bryant said.

Back to the Beach

The members of Team Fletch shed their wigs and jerseys late on a July afteoon and splash into the Pacific, soaking up the satisfaction of a championship.

With Walton subbing in to block and deliver powerful kill shots last summer, the team won its fourth title in 20 years.

A year ago, Walton coached the Warriors’ summer league entry in Las Vegas. It was his first experience as a head coach, but his responsibilities devoured time he would have spent on the beach playing volleyball in the past. He eventually found his way back to the sand.

The demands of coaching will only grow now that he is guiding the Lakers. And he will soon have even less spare time. His wife, Bre, is due with the couple’s second child this month. In his first true head coaching job, Walton’s friends expect he will throw himself completely into the work and temporarily retire from the Manhattan Beach social scene.

“We’re not going to see him as much anymore,” Leinart says, “but we’re all excited for him, obviously. To us, he’s just Luke, and everyone’s really pumped for him.”

When Walton finds a break in his schedule, however, his buddies anticipate they will receive the occasional text message, begging them to meet him at the beach for a game. And they’ll find it hard to resist.

“You’ll feel like you’re breaking Luke’s heart,” says Chris McGee, the Lakers television network studio host and a founding member of Team Fletch. “You’ll do whatever you can to get there. He just knows how to get you to tell your wife, ‘I’ve got to go play volleyball for an hour and a half.’”

The image of Walton on the beach could raise some eyebrows. Even coaches, however, need to exercise. To compete.

“He’s going to be out there playing volleyball,” says Fraser, the Warriors’ development coach. “But he’s got substance and intellect. He’s going to be watching film at night and other times. He’s going to be prepared.”

Come the end of July, the old crew will pull out their classic Lakers gear and their wigs and retu to the sand next to the Manhattan Beach Pier.

Don’t be surprised if Walton is among them.

He already helped his team restore its championship pedigree. Now there is a legacy to preserve.