Somehow Donnie Walsh was able to get rid of Jerome James (center). It's appropriate that the first photo that came up features him surrounded by food. Also in the pic are former Knicks Jerome "Mad Dog" Williams, Antonio Davis and actor Dennis Quaid. (source: Yardbarker.com)

For those who missed it, we had Part I of our evaluation of Donnie Walsh yesterday, in which we examined how he’s done in terms of drafting.  The rules again:

1. I don’t believe in negative Monday morning quarterbacking, so I don’t punish people for making decisions that were widely held to be smart at the time, but ended up working out poorly.  Meaning if LeBron James breaks his leg in seventeen places in a car accident tomorrow and can never really play better than an average player again, I can’t fault Pat Riley for signing him down the road.

2. I do, however, believe in giving credit for decisions that seemed poor/insignificant at the time but turned out great.  When the Suns reacquired Steve Nash from the Dallas Mavericks, many pundits felt they overpaid due to Nash’s back issues and age.  Two MVPs and many amazing seasons later, it’s clear that was a good move.

3. Draft-wise, in addition to no negative Monday morning quarterbacking, I also don’t believe that if someone makes a pick that turns out surprisingly great, you can’t fault all the other teams for passing on the guy.  Like Isiah Thomas gets kudos for finding David Lee at #30, but since no one thought he’d be as good as he ended up being, I can’t penalize all other 29 teams for passing on him.

4. For each positive thing, I’ll add some points (the # of points will depend on how big a thing it was).  Similarly, for each negative decision, I’ll subtract some points.  We’ll keep a rolling tally.

At the end of adding and subtracting points in the Drafting section, it all ended up back at zero.  today This piece has gotten longer and longer, so we’re gonna break up the second category, Trades/Free Agency Signings, into two parts, getting rid of that slash.  Today we’ll do Trades, tomorrow Free Agency, and then probably Friday the last category of Other/General.

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