Donnie Walsh was a really, really good executive for a long time for the Pacers.
However, I saw this note on TrueHoop yesterday, and this may have been the beginning of the end.
Quote:
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"The consensus in the Indiana Pacers' draft war room in late June 2002 was to take Tayshaun Prince, the long-armed Kentucky star who was expected to be available when the Pacers were making the 14th pick. The team's scouts were in agreement that Prince, a 6-9 shot-blocking talent with an emerging long-distance game, would be the perfect addition to a team that needed to make defensive strides, coming off its 42-40 season and first-round ouster by the Nets in the playoffs. Prince was the unanimous choice -- until the team's top basketball executive, Donnie Walsh, announced that he was allowing his head coach, Isiah Thomas, to take control of the draft. Weeks earlier, Thomas had settled on Oregon guard Fred Jones after watching him in the pre-draft camp in Chicago. When it came time to make the pick, Walsh stunned his subordinates when he said, 'I'll let the coach make the decision.' Wrong move, as it turned out."
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Link
Whoops.....