Pre-draft workouts have started, new coaches are arriving in Toronto and it’s time to continue looking ahead to next season unless you really want me to recap Game One of the NBA Finals between the Lakers and Celtics.

Nah, thought not, so moving on to things that actually matter to Raptors fans like the arrival of P.J. Carlesimo as an assistant to coach Jay Triano.

Carlesimo becomes Triano’s sixth assistant, leading someone, like me, with intricate knowledge of the soccer world to question…how many do they really need?

I’ve never known a team have that many coaches on their bench and it sometimes amazes me to see the huddles midway through a game with 30 or more people crowded around, of which only 12 can possibly be active players!

Sure, a soccer team might have a goalkeeping coach, maybe a couple of assistants and a physio, but never as many as your average NBA team puts out every night, and I am always left to question what a lot of them do? Does Triano actually listen to them, let them call plays, go get the half-time coffees?

Well, the latest addition to the staff is well known in NBA circles for his five-year spell as an assistant with the Spurs, and he was in San Antonio when they won three titles before moving up to become Oklahoma City’s head coach.

That didn’t exactly go to plan, Carlesimo getting fired after a 1-12 start to their first season after the move from Seattle, and he has been out of the game for a couple of years since.

But, at 61, he brings veteran presence to a staff that seems to need it and hopefully will play a big part in rebuilding a team that could still be ripped to shreds before the start of the 2010-11 season in October.

There is still no sure No 1 option for the first round addition to that team from this month’s draft either, although NBA Betting experts suggest that there have been plenty of players in town for workouts, most notably Cole Aldrich from Kansas and Daniel Orton of Kentucky, who seemed to impress a lot of the scouts at hand.

Orton’s impression could have been the biggest surprise of the lot, but whether the Raptors would reach for him at 13 is another question – he’s probably furthest away from the pro league as any of the prospects ranked to go around that mark but his stock is definitely on the rise.

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