That’s when D’Antoni will wonder why he ever signed with the Knicks when there were so many more enjoyable things he could have been doing, such as perforating his skull with a power drill or gargling with hydrochloric acid or going down into the subway and throwing himself across the third rail.

It could be that at some point, Dolan will ask himself why he keeps throwing money away on big-name coaches for his lousy teams. All he has to do is check the team’s history. He’ll notice that the last guy who took the team to the NBA Finals was Jeff Van Gundy, a former assistant whose first head coaching job was with the Knicks.

The Knicks need players first, not a big-name coach. Before D’Antoni entered the picture, one of the leading candidates for the job was former point guard and local hero at St. John’s Mark Jackson. He’d never coached before, but he understood the game, and he wanted the job in his home town. The fans would have loved him and would have cut him a lot of slack.

D’Antoni will get no grace period. And if his team is as bad as all the others, he’ll get no rest. He’ll have a pile of money, but the odds are good that sooner rather than later, he’ll wonder if it’s worth it.

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