"She's a truly gracious sports person and a lot of others could take a leaf out of her book and actually be a lot more graceful," he said.
"In my books she's up there with our greatest ever."
Walker praised Adams for not making excuses for not winning gold, although she did have legitimate grievances.
That included a long rehab from career-saving surgeries.
Her coach Jean-Pierre Egger also didn't make the trip to Rio after requiring knee surgery.
"She hasn't had a sweet year, has she?" Walker said.
"The fact that she dropped those three [throws] made me wonder whether she was 100 per cent, and she didn't have her coach there which was perhaps something of a handicap for her. But she didn't use that as an excuse - she didn't blame anybody.
"[But] I saw the smile on her face and the gratitude she showed for receiving a medal for New Zealand." Adams had been comfortably leading the pack with her 20.42m second throw - her personal best for the season - before Carter produced a career-best 20.63 thunderbolt to knock Adams from top spot.
Adams' basketballer brother Steven was among those to praise our silver medal hero, expressing his delight at her medal efforts on Twitter. "Very proud of you @ValerieAdams84 !!!"
Adams' efforts will be immortalised on a new limited-edition set of stamps set to become available soon.
"Featuring Valerie on a stamp is all the more special to us because she is a New Zealand Post ambassador and has represented us at so many junior sport and community events.
"We are very proud of her achievement in Rio," said NZ Post's head of stamps and coins, Simon Allison.
Adams' was the second silver to be sealed by New Zealand yesterday.
Genevieve Behrent and Rebecca Scown claimed second spot in the women's rowing. The pair started slowly but pulled into third over the middle 1000m before sprinting past Denmark in the final 500m.
