When the Knicks take the court tomorrow night in Denver, they won’t be the only dysfunctional franchise in the arena. The intrigue surrounding their opponent, the Nuggets, never seems to end.

Just weeks after promoting Michael Cooper as the new head coach to replace the deposed Jeff Bzdelik, the Nuggets abruptly shifted gears and hired veteran taskmaster George Karl as the new man in charge. Everything about this move is odd, beginning with the timing. Midway through a lost season at 17-25, it hardly seems logical to switch to a third head coach when a much larger roster of candidates will be available over the summer.

The hiring is even more bizarre when you consider the unusually generous terms of Karl’s deal – six years for a total of $20 million. This was quite a statement of confidence considering Denver’s last coach didn’t survive six weeks. It’s doubly amazing since the Nuggets were bidding against themselves to fill the league’s only open job.

Moreover, Karl’s previous tenures weren’t exactly awash in glory. His time at the helm of the Bucks ended in a spate of infantile name-calling between Furious George (as some in Denver are now calling him) and his players, but that still looks good compared to his stewardship of the embarrassing sixth-place U.S. team at the 2002 World Championships.

Finally, the coach and personnel seem to be a total mismatch. Karl is a veteran’s coach, but the Nuggets are a young team. Talented under-25s like Nene, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, DerMarr Johnson,and Rodney White dot the roster. Their best player, Carmelo Anthony, can’t buy his own drinks yet and only one important player, Marcus Camby, is over 30.

Karl, on the other hand, made his name finding roles for experienced players and making them more productive under his tutelage – Ricky Pierce being the prime example. Younger players, meanwhile, suffered under his command. He is perhaps the most reluctant coach in recent NBA history to use a rookie or second-year player.

In Karl’s Milwaukee years alone, Rafer Alston, Michael Redd, Ronald Murray, Dan Gadzuric, and Robert Traylor all wallowed on the pine behind less talented veterans. True to form, in his first game with the Nuggets, Karl left White,Tskitishvili, and Johnson on the bench but found 19 minutes for geriatric swingman Bryon Russell.

So what’s going on in Denver, anyway?

The answer appears to be that a meddlesome owner keeps reaching over from the back seat to grab the steering wheel.This explains much about what’s transpired in Denver this year. General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe wanted to fire Bzdelik at the end of last season, but apparently owner Stan Kroenke didn’t want to pay the final year of Bzdelik’s contract if he wasn’t coaching. Instead, Kroenke got half a season of lethargic play from a team led by an obvious lame duck before last month’s mercy killing ushered in Cooper.

At that point, Denver’s best strategy would have been to play out the season under Cooper and play the summer coaching market. But Kroenke, who is good friends with Karl, had other ideas. It didn’t matter that Karl was mismatched for the team. Kroenke pulled the trigger and even threw in a sweetheart deal for his old buddy.

That, in turn, makes one wonder about Vandeweghe’s job security; Denver’s disappointing start to the season could have ownership looking for a scapegoat. It won’t help Vandeweghe that his draft picks outside of no-brainer Anthony haven’t progressed as hoped. And his inability to get a decent shooting guard in the offseason proved painful when Voshon Lenard was lost for the season on opening night.

Vandeweghe is more interested in developing young players and slowly building a winner, which means Karl clearly isn’t his kind of guy. All this means that Karl likely will be able to go over his head on some personnel moves. Don’t be surprised, for instance, if Tskitishvili and White are exchanged for veteran retreads.

That kind of deal would provide some short-term benefits at a longterm cost, and that’s basically what hiring George Karl entails. The Nuggets were a lifeless 4-10 under Michael Cooper but won their first two – both on the road – with Karl in charge. He’s more of an offensive coach than a defensive one – even when he had Gary Payton, his teams were better on offense – and that’s the medicine Denver needs right now, because they rank just 24th out of 30 teams in Offensive Efficiency (my measure of points per 100 possessions).

As a member of the North Carolina mafia, Karl didn’t fall too far from the Dean Smith/Larry Brown tree. That means he’s picky about sharing the basketball offensively and avoiding too much one-on-one play, which is the Nuggets’ biggest problem right now. As talented as Anthony is, he tends to gum up the offense by standing with the ball for five seconds while he stares down his defender.That maneuver usually precedes a forced jumper from 20 feet.

The Nuggets have the least imaginative halfcourt offense in the league, so Karl’s acumen should come in handy there. His Milwaukee teams were able to score in bunches without a dominating low-post threat, and that’s the scenario he faces in Denver as well. Anything he can do to put more motion into the Nuggets’ moribund offense will be welcomed with open arms.

But despite his strengths, Karl’s negatives seriously outweigh the positives. With his previous teams, he enjoyed a honeymoon period of between 18 and 24 months before rampant bickering started tearing things down. He’s known to attack players in the press, especially when he perceives they’re playing selfishly, so one wonders how long it will be before he and Anthony are openly feuding.

More important, Denver’s not anywhere near ready to win anything of significance. Even if Karl were to improve the Nuggets enough to reach the postseason this year or next year, it would be a pyrrhic victory. The Nuggets’ challenge over the next few seasons is to develop more young players so they can expand their talent base. Only then would it make sense to bring a veteran-oriented coach like Karl into the equation.

Unfortunately, the Nuggets’ owners don’t see it that way. So get used to seeing a lot more of Bryon Russell and a lot less of Rodney White. The change may help Denver win a few more games in the next few months, but in the long-term, the hiring of Furious George was a curious decision indeed.