New Podcast ‘Bill Walton’s The Grateful Team’ Profiles 1992 Lithuanian Basketball Team

The Grateful Dead, basketball and Olympic worlds come together in the new three-part season of the BBC World Service’s Amazing Sport Stories podcast. Bill Walton’s The Grateful Team tells the tale of the Lithuanian national basketball team’s inspiring journey to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and the role the legendary Bay Area band had in making it happen.

Basketball Hall of Famer and massive Grateful Dead fan Bill Walton narrated the series. The project, which was recorded shortly before his Walton's death in 2024, is one of Bill’s last media projects. Walton was friends with both the band and members of the 1992 Lithuanian basketball team.

The story takes place in 1992, two years after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union. The country’s talented but financially-strapped basketball team needed funds to finance a trip to the Barcelona Olympics. The Grateful Dead were among those who answered the call by cutting a check and delivering it to the team along with a set of tie-dyed t-shirts in Luthuania’s national colors. As luck would have it, the squad faced off against their old comrades on the Unified Team — made up of all of the post-Soviet states except the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia — in the game for the bronze.

The new series features interviews with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and archivist Dennis McNally as well as Lithuanian basketball stars Šarūnas Marčiulionis, Rimas Kurtinaitis, and Valdemaras Chomicius.

“Basketball is life; so is the Grateful Dead. The Lithuanians have shown and given us life’s highest level, meaning, and purpose. The inspiration, the motivation that drives us to do better, to be better, and to do more. This is all so much more than just a game. You couldn’t make this story up if you tried. It’s what makes this life, and the Grateful Dead so special. I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Bill Walton said while recording the series.

Walton’s friends and family supported the project following Bill’s death. “For Bill, the collaboration between the Grateful Dead and the 1992 Lithuania Olympic Basketball team was a perfect fusion of his two passions. Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis were two of his favourite players, and the Grateful Dead was his favourite band,” explained Walton’s widow Lori. “Witnessing their unique partnership and success at the Olympics was a dream come true for him. Bill was incredibly proud and honoured to be a part of the BBC World Service’s Amazing Sport Stories Podcast.”

The first episode of Bill Walton’s The Grateful Team premieres May 19 on BBC Sounds and most podcast apps/platforms. Additional installments will be released weekly.