To any New York Knick fan who became optimistic when Donnie Walsh got hired last week, it is now time to take that optimism and shove it.
Today, the New York Daily News reports that Donnie Walsh has narrowed his choices for the Knicks GM position to two. This would not be so bad if the two involved were not Billy King and Rick Sund.
I thought to myself ‘This has to be a joke.” Why on earth would Donnie Walsh’s first move for the “future” of the franchise be to hire one of two guys who have been unanimously voted as ‘bad GMs’ in the past? It makes no sense at all. King and Sund are both notorious for separate reasons that we will get into later. At this rate, honestly they might as well just keep Isiah around because at least we can all get mileage out of making fun of him.
First off is Rick Sund. The man who many believe ran the Sonics into the ground. This is how atrocious he is as a GM. In three consecutive drafts, Sund drafted big men. Not only that but ‘project’ big men. In 2004, Sund picked up Robert Swift at #12 passing up on Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, JR Smith and Jameer Nelson to name a few. Not to mention the fact that Swift was just coming out of high school. In three years in the NBA, Swift has played in 71 games, averaged 4.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2 knee surgeries and 3 tattoos. There is a reason why if you Google Robert Swift, your first page and a half of results are about his tattoos and nothing about his game or career.
In 2005, after a surprising 50 win season, Sund used the Sonics #25 pick on Johan Petro from France. At the time, Petro was 19 years old. Guys who Sund passed up on: Jason Maxiell, Linas Kleiza and David Lee. It is easy to beat up on Sund for passing on Lee now. What I find to be vastly more dumb is the fact that Sund would pick another young big man..when the Sonics didn’t need it. They had drafted Collison and 03, and their front court was stacked with bangers like Danny Fortson, Reggie Evans, Radmonovic and even Swift..the kid they drafted the year before. In three years, Petro has played in 219 games, started 80 of them and averaged 5.8 points and 4.5 rebounds. Even better is he just recently lost his starting job to Francisco Elson, for no other reason but because he could not handle the pressure. Yikes.
2006, the Sonics find themselves back in the lottery and waste the #10 pick on Mouhamed Sene. Seriously. I have not heard a reaction quite like the one when the Sonics actually took a 20 year old unproven guy as the #10 pick. He’s played in 41 games in his career.
Sund….draft-killer. The Knicks are going to have to use the draft in a positive direction and to have someone who cannot draft worth crap as your GM is not a good sign. At all.
On to Billy King. For time and my sanity purposes I promise you we will not stay long. However this is the guy who could not find pieces to play with Allen Iverson. This is the guy who thought that Glenn Robinson and Chris Webber would be the answers for the Answer. I mean here are the facts…he gave 68 mil to Mutombo, 35.5 million to Aaron McKie, 29 million to Eric Snow, 18 million to Greg Buckner, 40 million to Kenny Thomas, 25 million to Brian Skinner and vastly overpain for Samuel Dalembert. Riddle me this people..isn’t the Knicks biggest problem their salary cap? And the fact that nearly everyone on their team is overpaid? And you’re going to put Billy freakin’ King in charge of lowering that salary cap so they could get LeBron in two years? Seriously…make me the GM. I would make terrible decisions and probably indirectly help the Blazers get a deal, but I promise I would do a better job than these two clowns.
The Donnie Walsh era…not looking so hot right now. Isiah still has a job and one of these guys could be making decisions in the Big Apple.