Knicks president Donnie Walsh knows better than anyone to be cautious when it comes to Shawne Williams and seeing whether the Cinderella story he is penning will have a happy ending.
Walsh drafted Williams in Indiana with the 17th pick in 2006, and Williams made Walsh and Larry Bird look bad. Williams got into trouble with the law multiple times, including gun-possession charges and marijuana arrests — mostly because of his bad associations.
But Williams’ performance during the past three games — after not even dressing for most of November — is making Walsh’s surgically repaired hip feel even better.
Williams has scored 13 points, 14 points and 13 points, respectively, hitting key shots in the fourth quarter in each win.
Williams has made 10 of 12 3-pointers. Last night, he helped stave off the Timberwolves by scoring 10 of his 13 points in the second half.
“It doesn’t surprise me in one sense,” Walsh told The Post yesterday before the Knicks’ 121-114 Garden victory, which he did not attend as he continues rehab. “I’ve known him as a great shooter, a very good rebounder and good defender. Those things I know he can do. When Mike [D’Antoni] told me he was thinking about playing him, I told him when he played in Indiana and came in, most games he’d make shots.”
Williams made his season debut nine days ago in Detroit. He has gone from a long shot to make the team in October to the 15th man for the season’s first few weeks to having earned a firm spot in D’Antoni’s tightening rotation.
“We still have to discover what he is night in, night out,” Walsh said. “If he keeps it up, he’ll be one of the better players in the league.”
Williams has played in the past five games — all victories — though once in garbage time. He has replaced Bill Walker, who has become expendable and last night sat out with a sore knee.
Walsh seems confident Williams is past the off-the-court woes that plagued him in Indiana.
“Shawne was more talented than some of the guys we were talking about bringing in,” Walsh said. “But I waited until the final week before camp to sign him because I needed Shawne to understand that here, you’re going to be judged very harshly off the court. On the court I knew he could play, but he made very bad judgements off the court.
“He told me, ‘You don’t have to worry about me, Donnie.’ And I thought he learned enough from past mistakes where I could believe him.”
Walsh felt he hung around with the wrong crowd and was involved peripherally in a couple of gun episodes. Last season he was cut by the Mavericks and the Nets after another marijuana arrest and his career appeared history. Williams has yet to be convicted.
“The off-the-court stuff got to be a big issue in Indiana and it hurt him there,” said Walsh, who was gone by the time Larry Bird cut ties with Williams.
“The issues we had with Shawne was he had to be careful in the NBA with his associations. If a guy he’s with has a gun, he’s going to go, too. That’s the type of stuff that happened to him. He’d be with a guy and Shawne would be the headline.”
On the court, Williams has perhaps the sweetest stroke on the Knicks from 3-point range, saying something considering the hubbub over Danilo Gallinari.
Williams seems poised, confident and makes few mistakes, but he defers to Gallinari, saying the Italian Stallion has the best 3-point shot.
Walsh does not remember any other team competing for Williams’ services.
“The league has a short memory,” Walsh said. “He was a guy drafted 17th with a lot of talent coming out of college [Memphis]. After a while, you don’t see him, you forget about him and new guys come into the league.”