I didn't see this posted elsewhere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/sports/basketball/01knicks.html?_r=1&ref=sports
Analysis
Walsh Eager to Finish Job, if Knicks Let Him
By HOWARD BECK
Published: January 31, 2011From his elevated perch in the final row of Section 16, Donnie Walsh’s view is clean, unobstructed and thoroughly enjoyable.
Amar’e Stoudemire, the charismatic star he signed last summer, is dunking and delighting the Madison Square Garden crowd. Raymond Felton, the deft point guard, is threading passes in the lane. Danilo Gallinari is flinging 3-pointers. Landry Fields is pouncing on stray balls. And Timofey Mozgov, the towering Russian rookie, has suddenly morphed into Patrick Ewing, inspiring raucous chants of “Moz-gov!”
The Garden is alive. The Knicks are thriving. Walsh, the 69-year-old team president, should be beaming.
Walsh constructed this team, the Knicks’ best in a decade, practically from scratch over the last two years.
He extricated the franchise from years of misery and mismanagement and restored respect.
The Knicks are relevant again, competitive, entertaining, worthwhile — worth smiling about, even. But Walsh has been an executive too long to indulge his pride, at least in January.
“I love a lot of the games I see them play,” Walsh, sitting closer to the court, said before a victory over the Detroit Pistons on Sunday.
“But I always reserve to the end of the year to see what happens.”
Wait-and-see is part of Walsh’s nature, but it may also be a matter of practicality. Walsh’s contract expires June 30, and he has received no indication from ownership that he will be retained. The team has until April 30 to pick up Walsh’s option for the 2011-12 season.
It would be shocking if the Knicks let Walsh walk away, but the Garden chairman, James L. Dolan, is famously unpredictable. Those inside or outside the Garden are unsure what his thoughts are regarding Walsh.
Dolan has not spoken to reporters in four years. A Garden spokesman declined to comment on Dolan’s intentions regarding Walsh.
“As a policy, we don’t comment on anybody’s contractual situation,” said the spokesman, Barry Watkins, the Garden’s executive vice president for communications.
The ambiguity surrounding Walsh’s status is creating unease among some Knicks officials and employees, who revere the New York-born Walsh for saving the franchise from the humiliation of the Isiah Thomas era.
There are fears, as well, that Dolan will attempt to bring Thomas back to run the team. Dolan tried to hire Thomas as a consultant last August — over Walsh’s objections — but the arrangement was nullified by the N.B.A. because Thomas, as the coach at Florida International University, has a conflict of interest.
Walsh replaced Thomas in April 2008, at the behest of Commissioner David Stern. But if Thomas resigns his coaching job, there is nothing to prevent Dolan from bringing him back.
In the meantime, Walsh seems to have full authority to continue shaping the front office. This season, he promoted Allan Houston (a potential heir) to assistant general manager. He is in the process of hiring Mark Warkentien, the former Denver Nuggets general manager, to bolster the scouting operation. Warkentien will be named assistant to the president — the title that Houston previously held.
Team officials insist that Warkentien’s arrival has nothing to do with the Carmelo Anthony trade talks or with Walsh’s future. But Warkentien clearly has the experience to run the team if Walsh is pushed out.
If Walsh is troubled by the uncertainty and the speculation, he will not say so. But then, Walsh generally disdains attention and articles about him. When it was suggested that fans might take up his cause in the coming months, Walsh cringed.
He said he would not ask to have his situation clarified.
“I never have; I don’t think about that,” Walsh said, but he confirmed that he wanted to continue. “If I’m the right guy, probably. But I’m not in charge of that, so I don’t worry about it. I feel good at this point, about how this has gone for the Knicks.”
Despite undergoing hip and neck operations last year, Walsh remains energetic and committed. And there is work to be done, to take the Knicks from a probable playoff team to a contender.
At 25-22, the Knicks are seven wins better than they were through 47 games last season. They have already won more games than they did under Thomas in 2007-8, and with a payroll (about $58 million) that is half of what it was during the Thomas era. They are on pace for 44 victories, their highest total since 2000-1.
They are doing it with a roster built almost entirely by Walsh, who spent two years stripping the payroll to make this rebirth possible. He acquired every significant player except Wilson Chandler (who was drafted by Thomas).
Stoudemire is the best player to wear a Knicks uniform since Ewing was in his prime. Felton is the Knicks’ best point guard in more than a decade. Fields, a second-round pick, is one of the league’s top rookies. Gallinari is blossoming.
Although Pat Riley is a virtual lock to win executive of the year, Walsh will be on any shortlist of candidates. Barring a sudden collapse, the Knicks will be playing deep into April, perhaps with a lame duck in the front office.
“I see the beginning of a team that I think can end up being a contending team someday,” Walsh said. “And I see the kind of guys that I think should represent the city and the franchise.”
He is too modest to say the same of himself and too experienced to fret about job security.
“It’s not that,” Walsh corrected. “It’s that — how do I say it? — it might be nice to live a real life. So I’m O.K. with that.”
2/1/2011 1:48 PM
