Donnie Walsh Had Tongue Cancer Surgery Days After His First Knicks Draft

The choice of Danilo Gallinari wasn't the most important thing on Donnie Walsh's schedule the last week of June: the New York Post's Peter Vescey reports Walsh had surgery to remove cancerous growths on his tongue -- a result of five decades of smoking -- just for days after his first draft as boss of the Knicks.

Physically, Walsh is almost back to normal. His mouth remains a little numb and his speech only betrays him when a conversation becomes lengthy.

"It's like I have marbles in my mouth. But you can't really tell there's something missing unless I stick out my tongue."

Vescey also says Walsh has stopped smoking, with the last drag coming the weekend of his surgery. There's lots of talk about mortality in the piece, with Walsh reaching an age at which his peers are passing away. The boss does seem in good health overall, though, and obviously has to hold buckets and buckets of vigor to take on a task like the Knicks.

In slightly less dire news, Walsh opened up Friday talking about the cruddy offers the Knicks have received for their less desireable players. Stop bringing crap, NBA GMs!

"Look, if you call up the New York Knicks and every trade people call up and they say, 'I want your first-round pick, $3 million and you get a lesser player than I'm getting,' " he said, "at some point I think somebody's got to say, 'I'm not going to do that, period.' "