KAWHI NOT TRY?

With Leonard on the outs in San Antonio Knicks should strongly consider going after defensive whiz.

ATLANTA — There’s going to come a time when the Knicks are going to have to roll up their sleeves, pound their chests, and say, “The hell with it. Let’s go.” There is no reward for the meek in the NBA. Patience is for priests.

Maybe that means focusing every ounce of their energy on the ever-shifting Kawhi Leonard situation in San Antonio. Maybe it lies elsewhere. Maybe they would be the longest of long shots in any scenario they try to construct.

But they have to think. They have to try. They have to come up with something.

Because if there is one thing that has become abundantly clear as the losing has come whirring by in a blur these past few weeks it’s this: Tanking isn’t enough. The Knicks have tanked their tails off. They have lost 22 of their past 25 games. That’s a winning percentage of 12 percent. It hasn’t been easy to watch.

It also hasn’t been nearly enough to make a dent.

For all the losing, all the incompetence, all the non-competitiveness — the Hallmarks of Hell — the Knicks still entered Thursday with only the ninthworst record in basketball.

That’s an awful lot of losing, already, to secure only the ninth-best chance to win the lottery — or even simply to move up in the lottery, something the Knicks haven’t done in 33 years. And that means unless the Knicks’ luck changes (And who among us believes that’s going to happen?), they are destined to another meh draft position. And all the meh that follows from that.

So the Knicks have to start thinking differently. It’s the only way. At some point they are going to have to make a big play for something, and someone, and have enough faith in themselves that it’s the right course. Can Leonard be that play? A number of dominoes would have to fall, of course, but a shocking amount already have. ESPN reported Thursday that Leonard’s teammates had what amounted to an intervention the other night, all but begging him to expedite his rehab program and rejoin them sooner rather than later as he battles back from an injured quad.

That hasn’t happened, and doesn’t seem likely to happen. Veteran Spur Manu Ginobili said Wednesday: “For me, he’s not coming back because it’s not helping [to think Leonard is returning]. We fell for it a week ago again. I guess you guys made us fall for it. But we have to think that he’s not coming back, that we are who we are, and that we got to fight without him.”

Does it give you pause that a player like this can’t figure out a way to be happy within the context of perhaps the greatest organization in sports? Sure. Maybe that’s the mole on the Mona Lisa the Knicks can seize upon. For it certainly appears the Leonard-San Antonio relationship is careening toward divorce.

And if that happens, there is likely to be offseason action the likes of which we’ve rarely seen. Leonard — two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, former all-NBA player, an NBA Finals MVP who won’t turn 27 until June — is a year away from a certain $200 million score as a restricted free agent.

He would be viewed by no fewer than a half-dozen teams as a Final Piece of the Puzzle, and will command a king’s ransom. But he is also the kind of player who would be a Cornerstone Piece for a team in a different place, a player around whom to build and a player with enough cachet other players would want to play with him.

The Knicks may not have enough toys to get in this game, but you have to start with Frank Ntilikina, and this year’s No. 1 draft pick (and, if it’s Leonard, yes, even another future No. 1), and then you listen to what folks want. If it’s Leonard, it has to include an extension. Lots of dominoes, no doubt. They still have to find out for certain, and they have to do it with both feet in, because the only chance the Knicks have is to be smart about the cards they have and play them all just right.

Tanking is torture. There has to be something better.