BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — He has become the most reliable Knick, in addition to the most productive one. It isn’t just that Marcus Morris is having the best year of his life, he is also the one whose face always reflects the scoreboard. If he has 35 and the Knicks are losing by 15, you aren’t going to see a smile.

On a better team, Morris would own basketball New York, in much the same way Charles Oakley did once upon a time. He is fiery and he is ornery and he demands accountability every bit as much as he demands the basketball. He’ll draw the occasional technical that seems terribly unnecessary until you hear his teammates swear by him.

“He provides so many things and we’re not even talking about what we’re seeing in the box score,” his interim coach, Mike Miller, said. “He’s having an outstanding year. He keeps playing better and raising it to another level.”

He is also coming off a 38-point masterpiece at Staples Center on Sunday in which he shot 6-for-7 from 3 and 13-for-19 overall, single-handedly allowing the Knicks to stay within 135-132 of the Clippers. It was impossible to keep your eyes off him, he was that good, and when was the last time you said that about a Knick.

So of course he has to go.

He doesn’t want to. He has said that time and again this year, even during the darkest times and the roughest spots. He’s here on a one-year deal and he has grown to enjoy the rhythm and pace of New York City. Playing so well obviously hasn’t hurt, either.

“I’m in New York,’’ Morris said after his Sunday outburst, which conveniently came before the interested eyes of the Clippers, one of the teams expected to make a play for him across the next month. “It ain’t going to change. I love our team and love our future. I want to be part of helping young guys grow. That was the reason I wanted to come here. It’s just in me to be a leader. Young guys, that’s what I’m here to do, help them on and off the court.’’

It kills you to hear these sentences, of course, because it doesn’t change a thing. Again: If the Knicks were better, if they projected even a little bit better short term, there is nobody you’d rather keep around to keep this year’s games interesting and competitive, to provide a role model for kids like Kevin Knox, to ponder as a possible free-agent signing when his deal expires at season’s end.

But the Knicks can’t think that way. This is the predicament they find themselves in, for better or worse, and the truth is if Morris can become a future first-round pick between now and Feb. 6, they have to make that happen. One of the few things the Knicks have done right as an organization is protect their own picks, and they still have the two from Dallas in 2021 and 2023. The Knicks need assets. They need to stockpile. This isn’t tanking, it’s sensible business.

Of course, it would feel like tanking once he’s gone. The notion of what the Knicks, who are 10-26, would be without Morris is frightening, because he hasn’t just been good-player-on-a-bad-team good — er, someone has to score the points — he’s been legit good. But does it really make sense to gamble on Morris being the centerpiece on this team for the next five years? And in what projects as a weak free-agent class, he could command a lot more than usual.

“He’s been amazing,” Julius Randle said of his running mate. “How he’s playing, how we’re growing as a team. You don’t want that broken up. But everything is a business. So you can’t predict anything.”

Part of business for the Knicks is finding out what they have among their kids. And right now it is Knox who has most been affected by Morris’ production. He doesn’t play this year with the same confidence he showed last year but part of that is opportunity: He averaged 28.8 minutes last year, only 19.4 now. He played only six minutes against the Clippers.

Knox said Sunday he tries to “stay locked in,” and understood that “the rotation got a little tough” thanks to the frantic nature of Sunday’s game. He won’t say so, but he’s the guy who would benefit the most by Morris’ absence.

Would the Knicks?

“Everyone is trying to win games and develop players,” Miller said. “Every team is doing the same thing.”

The road back is potholed with hard choices and tough decisions. Just like this one.

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