When CC Sabathia takes the mound Wednesday in The Bronx here is what the home crowd should do — especially this week — cheer and pretty much keep doing that no matter his results.

Sabathia is not the pitcher he once was. Nowhere close. And the excellence is not coming back.

But he lost his greatness the way fans say they want their athletes to lose it. With hundreds of innings and thousands of pitches year after year. By honoring the competition. By respecting his teammates. By understanding accountability.

In this week when we questioned where Matt Harvey’s head and heart were, we should remember that we never felt that way about Sabathia. Ever.

He pitched on three days’ rest down the stretch in 2008 for a relatively new team (the Brewers) and with free-agent riches in the balance that offseason. He pitched on three days’ rest in the 2009 playoffs when the Yanks Harvey-ed Joba Chamberlain and pulled him from the rotation due to an innings limits. Sabathia pitched to a 1.98 ERA that postseason in five starts and his ability to work on short rest enabled the Yanks to stay away from the concession speech that would have been using Chad Gaudin in the four hole.

Sabathia threw 266 ¹/₃ innings that year, postseason included. When Sabathia opted out following the 2011 season, the Yanks re-upped knowing full well the lefty’s warranty would probably come due during the life of the pact. But he was everything they could want in a pitcher, teammate, leader and competitor, so they re-signed him.

The last playoff series this organization won, the 2012 ALDS, was mainly due to Sabathia’s genius. But he essentially has never been the same pitcher again. Somewhere in that season or all the seasons, or in all those extra seventh and eighth innings he devoured so the bullpen would be available for others, Sabathia gave up the full blessings in his arm.

Yet, Sabathia was fortunate — he was the horse who got paid. Twice. In part because he never refused the ball.

Look, there is a tension at the heart of the game with what is best for the team and what is best for the individual (usually pitchers), and at times those are in conflict as we are seeing with the Mets and Harvey.

By the way, I have no problem with a player prioritizing decisions he believes will lengthen his career and checkbook. And if the most experienced doctors are counseling Harvey not to exceed 180 innings, they are the ones who know this inexact science best.

The Harvey problem was that this all needed to be managed better and one key reason why it was not was Harvey’s resistance to a six-man rotation and being skipped. He kept saying he wanted the ball, and when you say that, you are going to be held to it. Sabathia talked a heck of a lot less, but always made it clear he wanted the ball. And always took it. Even this season, his knee in shambles and his arm withered, he kept trying to summon the competitiveness and muscle memory to overcome diminished stuff. He never looked for an exit, never alibied.

I understand fans want results, but the nastiness — isn’t the spontaneity and anonymity of social media so grand? — to get this bum out of here or to harp on Sabathia’s weight is so disrespectful to how his ERA has bloated over 5.00.

Meanwhile, Harvey was the “hold-me back” guy in a fight. When he knew the Mets would not let him pitch last September, he wanted to fight (pitch). When he believed the Mets would hold him back due to non-contention or medical wisdom during the breadth of this season, he wanted to fight. But suddenly, when the Mets said essentially “go fight,” his agent, Scott Boras, was publicly trying to hold him back or Harvey was doing it himself.

Sure, Boras is focused on the future payday — that is his job, by the way. But I also think he emphatically believes his client is just about to head into a danger zone from which there is no turning back.

Again, this should have been managed better all year by both sides, but it wasn’t, in part, because Harvey was playing John Wayne. I still don’t think he recognizes that if you are the loud, look-at-me guy who wants all the trappings of New York and fame, it does not come for free. Alex Rodriguez has been that guy and so when the Yanks blew that 3-0 lead against the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS, there were a lot of reasons why, but A-Rod became the face of collapse.

Harvey should know that is in play here now, if the Mets do not hold onto this NL East lead, especially if he is not pitching at a time when innings are being pushed on a tiring Jacob deGrom, a regressing Jonathon Niese and a thin bullpen.

Sabathia has the enduring respect of multiple clubhouses — and he should have your respect, as well — because he didn’t talk about taking the ball. He just took it. Over and over. For years. We should remember that as he takes the mound Wednesday, this week more than ever.