Infinitely more important and far less sexy than the upcoming draft is the selection of the coaching staff last week. Overall, I like the selections.

Given the caliber of coaching interviewed throughout the process, it would have been hard to imagine not coming up with a quality staff, but oddly, half the staff (Bill Cartwright and Igor Kokoskov) was never interviewed for the top spot, and the other half's interviews (Thunder Dan's and Alvin Gentry's) were only for courtesy's sake. 

Alvin Gentry - solid and here for the right reasons - some transitional consistency.  I also like him as a coach from this TrueHoop playbook interview.

Although now TJ Ford appears being shopped to Indiana at the moment, check out this TrueHoop playbook interview passage on the relationship between TP and TJ.

Bill Cartwright - a solid choice but a bit of a surprise.  Most people thought Kerr would channel his Spurs ties, but he has been drawing from his Bulls relationships most, lately. 

This includes the Suns and Bulls sharing a D-league affiliate.   And there's no way Vinnie Del Negro got a shot as a head coach in Chicago without Steve Kerr's push.  No matter how talented VDN is and how smart Kerr and Paxson are, betting against the house to put in a coach with NO coaching experience at all is a stupid move.

Igor KoKoskov - I have no idea why "international experience" matters much.  This is the NBA (said like "This is Sparta!").  That this is his main selling point means you can infer there's not much about him to discuss, which doesn't help much. 

However, he was an assistant in Detroit and Terry likes him.  It's okay to have one homer to make Terry feel comfortable.

Dirty Dan Majerle - I've felt that Thunder Dan's coaching desires are badly motivated.  I hear Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days playing in his background. 

I can't help but feeling his interests are purely to get paid for partying in 29 other great North American cities 41 nights of the year.  Ask any D-leaguer, traveling with an NBA club is nice.  Chartered jets, 5 star hotels, per diem, red carpet treatment etc.   His social calendar just improved dramatically. 

Now, you might say he has the money, he doesn't need the job to party.  To which I retort, Meh, you obviously do not have a family.  The job is merely the alibi that gets you out of the house, away from your four kids to party all them nights.  Getting all expenses paid is just the bonus. 

It's still possible that Dan's competitive fire still burns, it's possible he could impart toughness to the players, but I surely hope it's a toughness he displays today, rather than merely talk about his glory days as he leads the charge to the party bars.

I was going to make more fun of the Dan Majerle selection, but I looked at the Knick's complete coaching staff.  Egad.  One rather remarkable assistant, a shooting coach and a high school coach who retarded Leandro Barbosa's defensive development. 

Clearly, with this staff, there will be no time at the Garden for practice, player development, or doing the long hours of homework on other teams.  Nor will there be time for novel suggestions, as Herb Williams hasn't survived 5 coaching changes by being a thorn in the coaches' side.  The team should still fair better, but now it's a BYOPDC (Bring-your-own-player-development-coach) club.

As an outsider, a small and particular staff as this looks about as weak and as inbred as the rest of the Knick's organization has looked in the current era.  At least with Phil Weber, Z-Bo might actually hit the rim with some of those off-the-dribble three-pointers from 8 feet behind the arc.