A letter to the editor about the Sonics:
Being too harsh toward Walker
In all of my decades of reading sports pages, I’ve never encountered such a mean-spirited rant as Steve Kelley’s vicious verbal mugging of Wally Walker (“Walker’s departure is too little, too late,” Seattle Times, Oct. 27).
Certainly Wally made mistakes (Jim McIlvaine and Paul Westphal being the most egregious) but running a professional sports franchise is hardly an exact science, and can anybody name a general manager who hasn’t goofed up more than once? Isiah Thomas can make more bad decisions in a single afternoon than Wally made in his entire career.
Moreover, his trade of Gary Payton for Ray Allen was brilliant; the moves that brought Earl Watson and Chris Wilcox here were shrewd; Rashard Lewis was a draft-day steal; and during Wally’s tenure a number of unheralded talents (Damien Wilkins, for example) were plucked out of obscurity by the Sonics.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for the probable loss of our franchise, but ultimately the dead horse must be left at the well-shod feet of (NBA commissioner) David Stern. Had Stern and his cohorts acted years ago to prevent players’ salaries from getting so insanely out of hand, there would be no arena issue in Seattle or any other NBA town.
— Tom Robbins, La Conner
