Mike Woodson has been on the hot seat since Day One of the season. He is actually an interim coach who did better than expected.

Now, the Knicks are after his head. With an awful roster and a direction-less team, why is Woodson still the coach?

Marc Stein, ESPN NBA Insider, has this bizarre reason:

"The latest rumble in coaching circles holds that Madison Square Garden chairman Jim Dolan is keeping Woodson around purely because he knows that making major changes to the roster before next season -- given New York's lack of draft picks and cap space and limited trade assets -- will be extremely difficult. Which leaves Dolan, in terms of pitching Carmelo Anthony to stay this summer, with little else to say besides: Woody was the problem! In other words: Keep the alleged problem around to the very last drop of this nightmare season -- and then hustle him out the door, painting a coaching change as a cure-all." 

In other words, Dolan wants to convince Anthony that the reason for their awful showing this season is Mike Woodson. If Woodson is the problem, then the Knicks would be able to provide the solution by firing him.

If Dolan fires Woodson now, it would be clear that the Knicks have problems on many different levels-problems that Dolan cannot fix. The only thing they can fix is the coach-and they will do that.

The Knicks would be in grave denial of the fact that they have overpaid players on their dysfunctional roster, no team chemistry and no draft picks. They want Anthony to believe this.

Dolan has a lot of pipe dreams to entice Carmelo to stay. From ESPN: "I presume you've heard the names of all the chief suspects by now. We wrote about the Knicks' not-so-secret lust for Chicago's Tom Thibodeau back in December. My ESPNNewYork.com colleague Ian O'Connor had an excellent breakdown earlier this week that runs through all the other heavy hitters Dolan will be chasing as soon as the season ends, leading off with Jeff Van Gundy and John Calipari. And ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reported Friday morning that the Knicks aren't even waiting until season's end to start feeling out Phil Jackson, even though Phil remains resistant to any Knicks overture."

Go Knicks! Good luck to your fans. And if Melo believes that, he will probably buy the Brooklyn Bridge with his big contract.