Lets play a little game here.  Everyone stand, we'll ask a question, and if you get it wrong you can sit.  The last person standing wins, got it?  Okay, here is the question.

Who, out of all the interim coaches currently in the NBA, is most likely not to be resigned by their team?

For the 98.9% of you who said Don Chaney of the New York Knicks, you can now sit.  The Knicks will announce as early as today that Chaney will receive a contract extension that will see him remain at the helm next season, according to Steve Popper of the New York Times.

The move comes to a shock to most, perhaps even to Chaney himself who said that he believed the Knicks would have to make the playoffs for him to have a chance of being retained.  But instead he is 11-27, many saying he was put in an impossible situation after Jeff Van Gundy bailed (Knicks were 10-9 at the time), and the Knicks look certain to miss the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.

"Since I became the coach, no one in management has come to me and said what I have to do to keep my job," Chaney said last week. "But when I took over, I believed we would have to make the playoffs for me to keep my job. But management has not told me that, and I appreciate that they have not put that pressure on me."

The players all like Chaney, even if they do not respond to him the majority of the time.  Chaney is the exact opposite of Van Gundy, allowing the players to take more responsibility rather than JVG's constant riding of the players.  Thus far this hasn't worked, but how different would the results be if he had a full training camp to instill his philosophies?  We'll now get that opportunity to see.

"I don't think people really feel like it's Don's fault," Latrell Sprewell said. "And I would agree with that: it's not his fault. He was just placed in a tough situation."

With GM Scott Layden in China last week scouting the 7-foot-6 center Yao Ming, it is unsure when Chaney would have actually been told of his job security.  James L. Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, met with Chaney for about 30 minutes after Sunday's loss to the Spurs and may have told him of the decision at that time, Popper writes, but with Layden the team's General Manager you'd think that the two would have discussed this previously.