Whichever spin is put on it, Donnie Walsh was pretty much stolen from the Indiana Pacers by the New York Knicks.
And there will be spin applied.
Count on it.

For the Knicks, this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. And if Walsh’s first move is to dump Isiah Thomas as coach, then the Knicks are well on the way to recovery.
And ‘recovery’ it is.
As is said in such programs, the first step to fixing a problem is admitting that it exists. And Isiah ‘exists’ on a level of incompetency that was difficult to imagine before his bungling reign of one of basketball’s premier franchises commenced.
The difficulty has been that for some line of reasoning beyond the ken of mortal man, the team’s owner – James Dolan – is a huge fan of Isiah’s.
With the induction of Walsh as GM, Isiah’s influence on the team is somewhat lessened. Dolan’s man-love of Thomas may go either way at this point, Thomas being sacked as coach might be declared off-limits… but I tend to think that Donnie Walsh allows Dolan an escape clause:

“Hey, I gave Walsh carte blanche with the franchise, and he made this decision.”

Wave bye-bye to Isiah folks. Not before time. If nothing else, Dolan was foolish for not seeing the writing on the wall re. the management skills Thomas possesses post his absolute destruction of the Continental Basketball Association.
Talk about ridiculous.
Isiah bought it for $5 million, the NBA offered him $11 million. He turns it down, and within a very short time frame, it’s dead in the water.
Rumors that did abound of Thomas intentionally running the league into the ground to make way for the NBA-owned NBDL lack credibility, for if that were the case, Thomas would’ve just sold the league to the Association.

Even whilst at the Pacers – where some credit him with doing a fairly good job coaching – a charge of mismanagement is more easily understood: in 2003 even with a talent-laden roster, the 3rd seeded Indiana lost to the 6th seeded Boston Celtics in the first round. Perhaps the best thing Larry Bird did in the front office of Indiana was to sack Isiah Thomas.

And ‘mismanagement’ is the key phrase for his tenure at the Knicks. Or perhaps ‘deluded’.
Even now, after all that he has dragged the New York franchise through, Isiah claims that he believes that he will win a championship with New York, and that he will leave a championship legacy.
Deluded.
Isiah Thomas will indeed leave a legacy at New York. One that will take quite a long time for them to recover from.

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