Here’s the thing about draft picks in the NBA: most of the time, they lose val­ue once they’re used. And if you’re a team like the Knicks with 11 first rounders in the next sev­en years, you can’t pos­si­bly use them all.

Which will even­tu­al­ly get us to Dono­van Mitchell.

For years, the Knicks stock­piled draft picks and tout­ed their ben­e­fits in writ­ten state­ments. The pre­vi­ous team pres­i­dent, Steve Mills, declared that he wouldn’t “skip steps” and deplete his assets to acquire a super­star, which appealed to Knicks fans who were trau­ma­tized by the trades for Carme­lo Antho­ny and Eddy Cur­ry, among oth­ers. Mills’ stance looked good after poten­tial tar­gets Rus­sell West­brook and Kyrie Irv­ing large­ly flamed out, but appeared fool­ish when Kevin Knox bombed and Jim­my But­ler and Kawhi Leonard surged to the NBA Finals.

The trade mar­ket has always been hit-and-miss. Just like the draft. The dif­fer­ence today, unlike just three years ago when Mills was build­ing around cap space, is that free agen­cies are no longer a real­is­tic path to a super­star. The Kevin Durants of the league are now sign­ing ear­ly and pick­ing their des­ti­na­tion while under con­tract. The biggest free agent to switch teams in the last three sum­mers was either DeMar DeRozan or Gor­don Hayward.

Which brings us to Mitchell, who is bet­ter than both.

There are few NBA play­ers as spec­tac­u­lar offen­sive­ly as the 25-foot spark­plug, who was report­ed by ESPN as avail­able in the trade mar­ket, even if he’s not being aggres­sive­ly shopped. Accord­ing to mul­ti­ple gam­bling web­sites, the Knicks are the over­whelm­ing bet­ting favorites to land Mitchell. That usu­al­ly doesn’t trans­late to inside knowl­edge but often indi­cates pub­lic sentiment.

It also makes sense.

The Jazz, an orga­ni­za­tion immersed in a tear­down after dead­bolt­ing its win-now win­dow, demon­strat­ed the pri­or­i­ty is draft picks. It accu­mu­lat­ed five unpro­tect­ed first rounders for two players.

The Knicks don’t have the most valu­able picks to dan­gle (many are heav­i­ly pro­tect­ed), but they can make it up in quan­ti­ty. And over Leon Rose’s tenure, there hasn’t been a bet­ter attain­able guard than Mitchell. He’s the best excuse for pass­ing up on Dejounte Mur­ray and Jaden Ivey.

Is Mitchell the per­fect fit? Not real­ly. There are real con­cerns about a back­court with him and Jalen Brun­son, with two ball-dom­i­nant under­sized guards who’ve strug­gled defensively.

For what it’s worth, they’ve already estab­lished a friend­ly rela­tion­ship, as Mitchell’s for­mer AAU coach Arjay Per­ovic explained, because Mitchell’s best bud in the league, Eric Paschall, was team­mates with Brun­son at Villanova.

“I know they have a unique rela­tion­ship because of that,” Per­ovic said.

There are oth­er impor­tant ques­tions to answer. Like, will the Jazz require RJ Bar­rett in the trade? What’s the ceil­ing with Mitchell as the best play­er? There are thresh­olds in nego­ti­a­tions and fit con­sid­er­a­tions that can’t be passed. But the answer to every rea­son­able sce­nario is this: Mitchell is worth the gamble.

At some point, Rose has to take a leap. You can’t per­pet­u­al­ly pro­tect future draft picks and hov­er in a zone of hop­ing to make the play­offs. Last we checked, Gian­nis Ante­tok­oun­m­po and Jayson Tatum aren’t avail­able. Even if Mitchell doesn’t ele­vate the Knicks into title con­tention, they can start by win­ning a round of play­offs — some­thing Mitchell has accom­plished more times in his short career than the Knicks have in 22 years — and go from there.

Then there’s Mitchell’s draw to the Knicks, which can’t be ignored because a superstar’s desire holds sway and often push­es nego­ti­a­tions to the fin­ish line. The dots con­nect. Rose is his for­mer agent. He loves the area beyond it being home. He’s close with asso­ciate head coach John­ny Bryant.

Besides, we love those home­com­ing sto­ries in New York City, espe­cial­ly in bas­ket­ball. Bernard King. Mark Jack­son. Rod Strick­land. Stephon Mar­bury. Joakim Noah. Kem­ba Walk­er. We even claimed Carme­lo Antho­ny, who left here for Bal­ti­more when he was 8.

Some worked out. Oth­ers REALLY didn’t.

Mitchell’s arrival at Madi­son Square Gar­den would add a sub­ur­ban twist. Though root­ed in Con­necti­cut, he played AAU for a Man­hat­tan-based pro­gram, The City, and dunked his first ball at a Harlem court because the black­top was slight­ly slant­ed. Despite the Knicks being stuck in mis­ery for most of his life, Mitchell hoped Phil Jack­son would use that eighth pick on him in 2017.

“I was super stoked about him poten­tial­ly play­ing here, and we did speak about it,” Per­ovic said. “And he was excit­ed, too. But it didn’t work out initially.”

There were unfound­ed rumors, jump­start­ed by a sto­ry from ESPN ana­lyst Jay Williams, about Jack­son falling asleep dur­ing Mitchell’s pre-draft work­out at the Knicks train­ing facil­i­ty. It was only believ­able because we wit­nessed the Zen Mas­ter doze off dur­ing the NBA com­bine that same year.

Regard­less, we can con­fi­dent­ly say Jack­son fig­u­ra­tive­ly fell asleep at the wheel. He picked Frank Nti­lik­i­na, who was seat­ed at a table neigh­bor­ing Mitchell’s dur­ing the draft as fel­low CAA clients. Recent­ly, Mitchell’s father, Dono­van Sr., an exec­u­tive with the Mets, told me he keeps a signed Nti­lik­i­na jer­sey hang­ing in his home. We’re guess­ing it’s more of a moti­vat­ing reminder than trea­sured mem­o­ra­bil­ia for Dono­van Sr.

Now Nti­lik­i­na is gone and the Knicks should do what they can to make up for that mistake.

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