Luke Walton hears the noise. The "Dad's House" chants at Pauley, the "Daddy's Better" chants everywhere else. The "hippie-freak" cracks in his own locker room. And always above the din, the megaphoned aphorisms of his dad ("Yooo're re-spon-sible for cre-ating your own life, yooo're re-spon-sible for cre-ating your own fun"). And while he's been trying for years to get a word in at home -- "My dad never stops talking," says Luke. "As kids, we'd say 'Dad, Dad, Dad! Hey, Bill!' Then he'd answer" -- the noise, it turns out, is, well, just that. Because once you've seen Jerry Garcia traipsing naked through your backyard, nothing fazes you.

	Luke Walton has escaped his father's shadow and become his own man.

Such is the lot of the son of a larger-than-life countercultural icon who doubles as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Like his three brothers, Luke has endured comparisons to -- and impersonations of -- his famous dad. But while each brother played D1 ball, only Luke emerged from the Mountain Man's shadow. Only Luke has been able to tune in and tune out.

To get a glimpse of whom everyone is talking at -- and about -- step inside McKale Center on a desert-hot Arizona afternoon. On the floor that bears his coach's name, Luke preps for his senior year in what is no run-of-the-mill pickup game. The 15 guys here could start for just about any college in the country. Instead, they make up the roster of the Arizona Wildcats. And to a man they're like their best player, dead serious about winning. Losers sit, so every call is questioned, every shot contested. There's enough grabbing and pushing to make Luke's namesake, his father's one-time teammate Maurice Lucas, proud.

Play is barely under way when Jason Gardner calls Channing Frye "soft" after a foul call. Before long, Will Bynum and Rick Anderson are jawing about the count. Walton, his mop of curls crashing down on his ears, is in the middle of the action, if not the mouthwork. He handles the ball smoothly on the break and easily cleaves the defense. But the 22-year-old forward keeps the familial baritone pretty much to himself. On game point, he reverse-spins at the arc and rises up as if to pull the trigger on a jumper. As big men turn their backs, heading to the rack, the ball whizzes by their ears and hits a cutting Anderson, who catches and scores in one motion. Only then does Walton let rip. "Yeah, baby," he bellows. "That's what I'm talking about!"

Later, Walton sinks into a leather couch in the off-campus, pink adobe he shares with teammate Isaiah Fox. He cracks open a bottle of the "ultrapurified" Penta water he's always guzzling. When Fox gripes about how Walton finagled the score at practice earlier, Walton smacks back.

"How many games did you win today?"

"How many did you cheat?" Fox responds.

"No, how many did you win?"

In a family where no one likes to lose, and in which for years the father never did, Luke likes it least. Susie Walton says when her second-youngest son was little, he'd play all four positions in Parcheesi to ensure victory. Parcheesi, pool, Ping-Pong, foosball, chess -- to this day, the den in Bill's San Diego home (Luke's folks were divorced in 1989; Susie lives in nearby Del Mar) is filled with outlets for a family's extraordinarily competitive genetic code. "For Luke, it's as simple as 'Am I winning this game of cards?'" says older brother Nate. "You hear about guys like Jordan who'd cheat their mothers. Luke cheats his family. If he loses a game, he won't talk the rest of the day."

And yet this family-studies major couldn't be more generous, more welcoming, when win-or-lose isn't part of the equation. "Luke is so chill," says Frye. "If you didn't know his dad you wouldn't know he was rich. All he wants is to hoop, go to school and have fun." Luke's house, stocked with breakfast burritos and cases of Penta, is where the Cats come to hit the Xbox or just hang. And his ability to fit in anywhere, with anyone, makes the senior a favorite in Tucson. As he cruises the streets in his champagne, 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible, Walton is a curly-haired Cheshire cat with teammates in tow. He doesn't even mind the ribbing that's part of his legacy. "Hey, Luke," Gardner might say when the Wildcats come across a hippie, "is that the brother you haven't met?"

***

A battered wooden backboard hangs off a fence, shrouded by ivy, white paint peeling. Another, made of glass, juts from a small garage. At the red cement's edge sit 20 or so basketballs baking in the sun. As kids, the Waltons and their friends spent every day here in pickup games not unlike those in McKale. Only worse. Games here often ended in punches. "Luke and his brothers are like those bad boys down the street who your mom might not want you to play with," jokes Fox.

Welcome to Chez Walton, which Anderson calls "the trippiest place I've ever seen." Perched on the side of a canyon near San Diego's famous zoo, the house is a sort of attraction itself. The grounds feature a pool, tennis and hoops courts and a 16-foot-high teepee. Inside, winged creatures made of paper and cloth hang from the ceiling, above books and drums and wooden Indians. The kitchen is decorated with tiles depicting Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons. Amid the visual cacophony, snapshots of a 4-year-old, tie-dyed Luke, backstage at a Grateful Dead show, jog his memory. The band members were family friends, who'd drop by to jam on the tennis court. "They'd hang out, walk around naked, do the hippie thing," says Luke, whose right-biceps tattoo of four dancing skeletons twirling basketballs (representing each brother) speaks to an inherited obsession.

Bill says the house, which he shares with second wife Lori, is a shrine to Jerry Garcia. Yet for all the skulls and roses, another icon is given equal billing here. The owlish image of John Wooden is everywhere in the home of his greatest apostle. As Luke was growing up, his friends would snatch away his lunch bag to read the daily Woodenism ("Be quick, but don't hurry") that Bill had scrawled on it. During last year's NCAAs, the elder Walton called his son on gamedays to recite some Wizard wisdom. Then, he'd call back a few minutes later to offer some more.

Give Bill a chance to expound on his two well-documented influences and he'll break into one of those lengthy soliloquies he's become known for on TV. "We-ee-ll," he drawls. "It's the cre-ay-tivit-ee and the imagination, the e-lectricit-ee, the rhythm, the explosiveness, delivering pee-eek per-for-mance on command, making uh-ther people's lives fun, cre-ating joy and happiness for uh-thers, the lee-dership, the willingness to make the hard decisions, keeping everybody together. They are definitely the same person."

Captain Trips and The Wizard. Only Bill Walton could see harmony in the two. Yet the more time you spend with Luke, the more you understand how one person can find common ground in two seemingly polar opposites. Because if you want to call Bill the virtual offspring of Wooden and Garcia, you have to call Luke the real-deal product of Bill and Susie Walton.

Watching Luke play, of course, it's easy to flash back to images of the Big Redhead. His family thinks he's the one who most resembles his father, and while the brothers aren't hoops slouches -- Adam, 27, played at LSU and Cal Poly Pomona; Nate, 24, played at Princeton and is now a pro in France; Chris, 21, is a junior redshirt at San Diego State -- it's Luke who evokes their dad's mannerisms and on-court intensity.

He had little choice. During Luke's sophomore season at University High School, the team's biggest conference rival was St. Augustine, led by current Raptor Jelani McCoy. Days before one of Luke's games with St. Augustine, Bill would start to bark out a list of people he wanted a piece of: Kareem, Mike Tyson, Jelani McCoy. "Line them up," he'd say. On gameday, says Luke, "We'd come down for school at around 7:30, and he'd just be walking the house, squeezing his hands and pumping his fists. He'd see us and say 'Let's go. Jelani McCoy tonight! Come on, let's get him!' He'd get down and start doing pushups."

Years later, Bill is sheepish, if not apologetic. "I was a spirited competitor," he explains. "I try not to be overbearing, but sometimes I get fired up."

And how does such fire play with his sons? "We'd be dying laughing," Luke says.

But surely that intensity helped Luke lead University to a state title when he was a senior, and explains how Arizona rebuilt its program so fast after losing four starters from the 2001 national championship runner-up to the NBA. Last season, he was both mentor and friend to the Cats' five freshmen. "He's confident, and his teammates developed that same type of confidence," says head coach Lute Olson. "Guys love to play with him."

After redshirting one season with a fractured right foot and backing up Richard Jefferson (now a Nets star) for two more, Walton exploded as a junior, averaging 15.7 points, 7.3 boards and 6.3 assists. About the time the kid was named MVP of the Pac-10 tourney, Bill noticed he was starting to be referred to around Tucson as "Luke Walton's dad."

	Made in the likeness of his dad, Luke embodies the spirit of his mom.

Luke was the first frontcourt player to lead the Pac-10 in assists, and it's his passing that separates him from the nation's other big men. Almost every dish is no-look. "As soon as the ball is in Luke's hands, everyone is moving," says Olson, "because they know if they get open, he'll find them." The Cats call him Bird, and he may well be the best passing forward since Larry Legend. He comes by his gift, not surprisingly, in a family way: Playing with two older brothers, he had to give up the ball to get it back. And how many other collegiate big men spent their childhood watching dad play with Bird's mid-'80s Celtics?

But if Bill (and friends) made the baller, Susie made the man. Luke says he's closer in nature to his bubbly, big-hearted mom. He was shy as a kid, rarely speaking. "He stood back and observed things," says Chris. At restaurants, someone else ordered his meal. He refused to go to preschool unless Chris, who wasn't even enrolled, came too. Susie helped him break out, mostly by keeping her family life normal despite Bill's fame. In one two-year stretch, she logged 100,000 miles on the family minivan, shuttling the boys to games. And a few years ago, Susie sent all four kids to work at her sister's Colorado ashram for a week. "She always stressed that whatever we wanted to do in life was fine, but that we should try and make the world a better place," says Luke, who participates in a Big Brother program at Arizona.

Susie was indirectly responsible for Luke landing in the desert. In the fall of 1997, Luke was down to five college choices. Four, including UCLA, never got a chance to pitch him. On his visit to U of A, he committed as Olson drove him to the airport. Susie wanted Luke to wait to make his other visits. "'You don't understand,'" she remembers him saying. "'It's like family there. And Mrs. Olson reminds me of you.' What could I say to that?"

But Susie's influence is most obvious in Luke's friendships at Arizona, most notably with Gardner and Jefferson. Inheriting his mom's natural empathy helped him forge an almost symbiotic relationship with Gardner. When Walton is frustrated, he runs his hand through his hair; Gardner occasionally mimics the gesture in solidarity. The pair works such a good two-man game that other Cats playfully accuse them of playing "Buddy Ball."

Off the court, meanwhile, Luke is both confidante and prodder. "He's great as far as me being able to tell him things about my life," says Gardner, adding that it was Walton who got him to go snorkeling and tubing in Australia this past summer -- even though Gardner can't swim.

Walton bonded with Jefferson, a missionary's son, during their recruiting visit; both committed, despite playing the same position. They took the same classes during Jefferson's last two years in school and learned sign language together. "Luke is so well-rounded," says Jefferson. "He can hang with black guys from the worst part of Chicago, or at a Dylan concert with a bunch of hippies." Small wonder Olson calls Walton one of the best leaders he's ever seen, on what just may be his best team.

Of course, there's one place Walton hasn't led his teammates, and it's a destination his dad won't let him forget. "I told Luke after last season, 'Everybody is saying nice things about you, writing stories, putting pictures of you in the newspaper,'" says Bill. "But my experience is that life is better when you win your last game. Senior year, that's your last go-round. I didn't get it done."

Of course, Bill did get it done the two years before that (and twice more as a pro). Luke insists he has his own goals. And if a ring might not equal Wooden hanging a banner in Pauley -- or Jerry hitting the first notes of "St. Stephen" out of "Space" -- he figures it may silence the hecklers.

If it helps him get a word or two in at home, all the better.

This article will appear in the November 25 issue of ESPN The Magazine.