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.

This happened:

In case you missed it, Nate Robinson returned from a month-long benching to score 41 points in the Knicks’ comeback win on Friday night. Then — and huge hat tip to Can’t Stop the Bleeding for this one — he gave an absolutely epic postgame interview. Enjoy:

Nate Robinson thanks you, XBox Live community.

I mentioned yesterday that I would watch the Knicks way more if Allen Iverson was on the team. I suppose I should note that I would watch Allen Iverson do pretty much anything.

I feel that way about a couple other athletes, but usually they’re the ones who are epically great, guys like Albert Pujols and Michael Jordan who are tremendous in stature both physically and metaphorically.

Iverson is different. Iverson’s appeal is more akin to Carlos Beltran’s. Both great players, no doubt, but not legends like their contemporaries. They’re athletes whose appeal is bolstered by some kind of palpable aesthetic cohesiveness.

Beltran’s, I would say, is grace. Every part of his game is elegant and smooth, there are no hiccups or excess movements.

Iverson’s is something else entirely. Watching him, and actually considering the moves he’s making, you’d think he should look awkward, herky-jerky. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen another NBA player spend so much time stumbling.

But there’s a fluidity to Iverson’s game that creates some unified sense of style, and one that’s difficult to define.

It’s like he’s mastered the rhythm of basketball. When you think about it, I guess, that’s really the nature of his game: He knows exactly when everyone else on the court expects something to happen, and exploits it to his advantage. That’s how he pulls off the crossover dribble into the jumper, or the improvisational layup, or the takeaway at halfcourt.

It’s all about timing, I suppose, and that’s nothing new. Iverson just toys with it so perfectly. It’s like bebop, intentionally awkward and disarming, but inarguably poetic.

You can even see it in that thing he’s probably, and pathetically, most famous for — “We talkin’ about practice.” Was there anything so outlandish about what Iverson said there? Not really. It’s the way he said it — the rhythm of it, the repetition, the weird pauses and stutters — that made it so entertaining.

It’s the same stuff that makes him so awesome to watch, even now past his prime.

I have the utmost respect for what Donnie Walsh is trying to do with the Knicks. It takes a whole lot of chutzpah to maintain a patient approach to building a team in a city with such demanding fans and media.

But Iverson wouldn’t jeopardize that at all, not signed to a one-year deal. He’d simply be a diversion, a reason to watch the Knicks now while we all sit around and wait to find out what happens with LeBron.