Currently in his third season as Knicks president, basketball operations, Walsh has mapped a clear and unwavering path for long-term success ever since returning to his native Big Apple on Apr. 2, 2008. Succeeding on his initial plan to bring the Knicks under the NBA Salary Cap for the first time in more than a decade, Walsh’s efforts eventually resulted in New York’s headline-making Summer of 2010 in which Donnie put five-time NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire, veteran backcourt leader Raymond Felton, and rising talents Anthony Randolph, Kelenna Azubuike, Ronny Turiaf and Roger Mason, Jr. in Knicks uniforms.

Over an NBA career that has stretched to nearly three decades, it was an off-season unlike any other for Walsh, the League’s longest-tenured basketball decision-maker.

“I was really looking forward to the free agent market because I really felt you could build a team with the kind of players we wanted,” says Walsh, 69. “I feel like we’ve done that, and for the first time I feel like we’ve got a team that seems to fit together. I like the attitude and the talent of the players we’ve brought in. I like the fact that you can plug them in and they should, as we go on, make each other better. That’s what a team does. I think we got to the first stage of trying to bring New York back to contending status, which is our goal, to contend for a championship. It’s not just to do this or that, it’s to try to end up with a contending team. I think we’ve made a step toward that.”

Few know the New York mindset better than Walsh, a product of the city’s streets and blacktops. Throughout the rebuilding process, he continually cites the patience and enthusiasm of a Big Apple fandom that sold out the Garden 49 times over Walsh’s first two Knicks seasons.

“I think the fans are really interested in how we’re going to be,” he says. “They sense it’s a brand new team. They’re really informed fans...I think they’re hopeful that we’ll be a better team and will challenge for the Playoffs, then build the team up into a contending team. We did pretty much what we told them we’d do two years ago. This is what we’ve done, and if you come in I think you’ll see a team that can succeed; and we’ll be looking at the parts of this team to make sure we see what else we have to do to get this where it should be.”

Walsh’s makeover of the Knicks has been such that only two players - Wilson Chandler and Eddy Curry - remain from the team Donnie inherited in April 2008. And by no means is it complete, as Walsh’s management of the Salary Cap allows for the possibility of further key acquisitions in the years ahead.

“Our plan was to get into the free agent market, but also to manage the cap so that we can go back into it as needed,” he explains. “Our cap is in a very flexible position, because we don’t have a lot of long-term contracts. I never approached it with the feeling that we could solve all of the problems this year; things don’t work that way.”

Rebuilding an NBA franchise toward contending status is nothing new for Walsh. He joined the Knicks following a 24-year tenure with the Indiana Pacers, over which he built the Pacers into one of the NBA’s elite franchises.

The Bronx native originally joined the Pacers as an assistant coach in 1984. He was promoted to general manager in 1986, to president of the Pacers Basketball Corporation (now Pacers Sports & Entertainment) in 1988 and, on July 11, 2003, to chief executive officer and president. Under Walsh’s leadership, the Pacers won four Central Division Championships, made six trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, and climaxed Walsh’s tenure with the 2000 Eastern Conference Championship.

Over a 10-year period that concluded with the 2004-05 season, the Pacers had the best winning percentage (.602) of any team in the Eastern Conference. The Pacers won 50-plus games five times under Walsh’s stewardship, and made the NBA Playoffs 16 times over a 17-year span from 1989-90 through 2005-06. Highlighting that stretch were six memorable Playoff series against the Knicks which the two teams split 3-3, including Indiana’s triumph over New York in the 2000 Eastern Finals which earned the Pacers their first trip to The NBA Finals. With the Pacers, Walsh brought three of the game’s most respected names - Hall of Famers Larry Brown, Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas - to coach the team.

“What you can’t lose sight of is that it all revolves around the team itself. Your team is going to reflect your franchise,” says Walsh. “We’re in a professional sports world where, in order to be a successful company, you’ve got to be good. And the team’s got to be good in two ways: It’s got to be successful in wins and losses, and it’s also got to be well-liked and well-identified by the fans.”

In addition to his success with the NBA Pacers, Walsh oversaw major projects for Pacers Sports & Entertainment, including the opening of Conseco Fieldhouse in 1999 and the creation of the WNBA’s Indiana Fever that same year. Considered one of the game’s true showplaces, the state-of-the-art Fieldhouse owes much of its “retro” feel to Walsh’s input and memories from his days as a fan at the Old Garden on 49th Street. (“The excitement of walking into that lobby; I remember how exciting that was,” he says). In addition, he was a member of the U.S. Olympic Games Committee for the 1992 and 1996 men’s basketball squads.

Walsh’s basketball pedigree took firm root on the streets of New York City. An outstanding high school player at Fordham Prep, he scored a game-high 23 points to earn Most Valuable Player honors in the 1958 Herald Tribune High School All-Star Game at the Old Garden on Mar. 29, 1958. Walsh then played at the University of North Carolina under the legendary coaching duo of Frank McGuire and Dean Smith.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, Walsh attended the North Carolina Law School and helped coach the Tar Heels’ freshman team for two seasons. After graduating from law school and turning down offers from then-former Vice President Richard Nixon’s law firm in New York City and the U.S. Justice Department’s Honors programs, he took a graduate coaching position under Smith at North Carolina and then became an associate head coach under McGuire at South Carolina.

In 1977, Walsh was about to enter private law practice in South Carolina, but Brown, the head coach of the Denver Nuggets, asked Walsh to join him as an assistant. Walsh stayed with the Nuggets as an assistant coach and then as head coach - compiling a 60-82 mark over three seasons - before entering private business in 1982. He joined the Pacers in 1984 as an assistant under Head Coach George Irvine.

In 2000-01, Walsh earned recognition from Bloomberg News Service as the NBA’s top basketball executive in a vote of the league’s coaches. In June 2004, he was honored with the Indiana Pathfinder Award for his contributions to causes involving Indiana youth. In 2009, he was honored in his hometown as a Rucker Park Pro Legend.

Born in Manhattan on Mar. 1, 1941, Donnie was raised in Riverdale. He and his wife Judy - both Big Apple natives - have five children and live in Indianapolis. They also are avid dog lovers.