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Getting Walsh is no Garden party

Ken Berger

March 25, 2008

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So Donnie Walsh lost his power play with ownership, and the plan he announced months ago - that this season would be his last with the Pacers - is the way it's going to be.

Lost, you ask? How did the venerable Pacers CEO lose when his name is practically already blinking on the Madison Square Garden marquee?

Somehow Joseph Donald Walsh managed to get forced out of a failed front office in Indianapolis and become the leading - or only - candidate to run the Knicks, all in the same day.

Only being the key word. If an unbylined ESPN report that broke last night during the Knicks' 51st loss of the season is true, Walsh will take over the Knicks at the end of the season.

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After an arduous, grueling, thorough search that involved not a single phone call to not a single other candidate.

On one level, the Knicks make perfect sense as a place for Walsh, a native New Yorker, to get one more payday - reportedly three years and $15 million, although that sounds suspiciously low to me. It makes sense because he is one of the few qualified people in the NBA who would agree to work with Isiah Thomas.

It makes no sense because this situation at the Garden has gone on so long, with so much erroneous and agenda-driven speculation and such stubbornness on Jim Dolan's part, that it requires something more than this.

It requires a real search for the right candidate, not merely a rush to scoop up someone who just lost a leverage play in Indianapolis. Fifty-one losses in, with Walsh counting the days to his departure from the Pacers ... what's the rush?

If this is what the Knicks are doing - Walsh overseeing Thomas as he oversaw Larry Bird in Indiana - then this is the most absurd plan anyone at the Garden has hatched in years.

Since word got out last week that Walsh had preliminary talks with the Knicks, the fullcourt press has been on to make it so. Never mind that Pacers owner Herb Simon didn't seem as impressed with Walsh's plan to stay in Indiana as Walsh might have hoped.

Whatever the case, Walsh's agent, Steve Kauffman, merely issued a statement saying he would not comment on Walsh's future until Walsh authorized him to. Walsh did not return a phone call, and Garden spokesman Barry Watkins declined to comment.

The fact is, as of yesterday the Knicks still had not contacted Jerry West, Jerry Colangelo, Kiki Vandeweghe or Mark Jackson any more than they have contacted Larry Brown. It is a given that Dolan will do what makes the least sense, and if this is what he's doing, congratulations are once again in order.

There is no denying Walsh's track record. But it defies logic that Dolan would act now, after all this time.

"Why would Dolan deviate from the way he's worked up to now?" an NBA source said yesterday. "It would show weakness."

There should be a thorough, rigorous search for someone who is available, willing, and capable of fixing this mess, not a quick fix. I maintain that if such a search were carried out, better candidates than Walsh would emerge. Two of them are named Jerry.

Colangelo has maintained a low profile since he said during All-Star weekend that he was "open" to talking with the Knicks. West told Newsday last week that it would be "exciting" if the Knicks called, but the 69-year-old Hall of Famer maintained that he isn't sure if he wants to run another franchise.

Those close to West say he does, and that the Knicks are the franchise he wants to run. Simply put, West doesn't have an itch. He has a rash.

But the Knicks have something worse: an impetuous desire to act contrary to all sane basketball practice.

The question I have is the same one a high-level coaching source proposed yesterday while trying to compute how Walsh could zoom to the top of a Hall of Fame list of candidates without any of the other candidates being contacted.

If the Pacers didn't want Walsh to stay, why would the Knicks be in such a rush to hire him? That's a question that should leave you scratching your head.