Donnie Walsh kind of looks like Earl Milford, founder of Arrested Development’s Milford Academy, but he has made his intentions both seen and heard since he took over the Knicks in April of 2008.
Walsh has worked tirelessly to dig the team out from the under the giant stinking pile of muck Isiah Thomas dumped all over it in his epically terrible tenure.
Today, Walsh pulled off a three-team deal to ensure that the Knicks will be able to sign two max free-agents this offseason, when, among others, LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade hit the open market. He had to give up a couple draft picks and Jordan Hill to do it, but it was, as Marlo Stanfield might put it, “some Spiderman s@#!.”
It strikes me that, only a few paragraphs deep in this post, I’ve already referenced two of the greatest television shows of all time. It wasn’t intentional, but maybe it had something to do with the subconscious knowledge that the Knicks, for the past several years, have been nearly unwatchable.
So as only a casual fan of the team and, hell, the entire professional game, maybe the allusions to Arrested Development and The Wire signify my hope that next year’s Knicks — with LeBron and Bosh or LeBron and whoever — could become the type of programming so transfixing, so transcendently awesome that I feel the need to watch and rewatch every moment, like I once did those shows.
And it could happen. If it all goes down according to Walsh’s plan, it’s entirely likely.
The fear, of course, is that it won’t. That King James will stay put in Cleveland and Walsh will be left with some lesser free-agent haul and egg all over his face.
The thing is, Walsh — with the way he’s gone about eradicating the detritus of Isiah’s amazing orgy of suckitude — should by now have earned enough faith from the Knicks’ fanbase for it to assume he’ll do well with the cap space he’s fought for since the day he took the reins.
So the Knicks’ deadline deals — to this partial but somewhat distanced observer, at least — don’t say “LeBron or bust,” as much as they say “tabula rasa.” Walsh will enter the offseason with a clean slate and a ton of flexibility to mold the team in his and Mike D’Antoni’s image, and only Eddy Curry left to show for the Isiah Thomas Era.
Of course, building a good team is a lot different than dismantling a crappy one, and it remains to be seen if Walsh is nearly as good at the former as he is at the latter.
Put me down for bullish, though. At the very least, I’m guessing he’ll be better than Isiah.
Buffalo, as I’ve mentioned before, has one of the most active and dedicated Minor League fanbases, and during last season the Mets promised to do better by the city.
Awesome.
Tedquarters 