A dashiki-clad Clarence Gaines sprinkled in some peculiar questions in combine interviews

The NBA Draft Combine is wrapping up, and the biggest story in the New York media at the moment is Phil Jackson saying the exact same stuff about Carmelo Anthony that he said last month. But that stuff is boring, so let us instead focus on the work of super-scout Clarence Gaines—a.k.a. the dude who recommended the Knicks draft Kristaps Porzingis. Mr. Gaines had himself a productive combine, according to Marc Berman:

“Jackson said he had his “master interviewer,” senior advisor Clarence Gaines, ask some oddball questions to “knock them off base a little” from their “set story.” Gaines, the former Bulls scout in the glory days, showed up at the combine Friday wearing a dashiki — an African gown — as Jackson pointed out.”

That, my friends, is how you conduct an interview. But what sort of oddball questions did the dashiki-clad Gaines ask to get prospects out of their comfort zone? Coincidentally—or perhaps not—one of the more interesting stories to come out of the combine was Kansas guard Frank Mason revealing that an unnamed executive ask him how he’d prefer to die:

Honestly, I don’t think Gaines asked the death question. If you check out his Twitter account—which is wonderful, by the way—the guy has an eclectic set of interests. Maybe he asked kids about the works of singer-songwriter Janis Ian, or their thoughts on military intervention in Syria. All I know is that Mr. Gaines was rocking a dashiki and asking college kids a bunch of interesting questions. And that makes me smile.