If — and this is a mighty big if — the Pacers choose not to retain head coach Frank Vogel, the Knicks could be a perfect landing spot for the New Jersey product. That’s according to one man who formerly worked the Garden sidelines and gave Vogel his coaching start: Rick Pitino.

“Frank would be a perfect fit anywhere. He is so adaptable, so even keel. Frank never gets too high, never gets too low,” said Pitino, head coach at Louisville. “Frank could coach anywhere. He could coach Sacramento. He could coach New York.

“He’s a basketball junkie who puts everything he has into the game. He’s been around the block and he’s adaptable to any situation.”

Vogel’s contract has not been renewed yet by the Pacers and he could hit the open market. Pacers president Larry Bird told the Indianapolis Star he was uncertain about Vogel’s future in Indiana. Immediately, speculation began.

But there’s good reason for Knicks fans to get pumped at the possibility of Vogel — and not just because he spun a basketball on the end of a toothbrush while brushing his teeth as part of David Letterman’s “Stupid Human Tricks” 30 years ago.

“Frank is terrific. He’s one of the good ones in the NBA,” said Pitino, for whom Vogel worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Kentucky. “Players are going to enjoy playing for him because he’s going to demand excellence in a way where he puts the players in the spotlight, not himself.”

Vogel, in 5½ years with Indiana, has fashioned a 250-181 record, making him the winningest coach in the Pacers’ NBA history. (Bobby “Slick” Leonard in 11 seasons forged a 529-456 mark, but that included seven ABA years.) Vogel’s Pacers this season lost in the first round to second-seeded Toronto in seven games. Bird then gave his state-of-the-coaching-situation views, noting, “We need to score more points.” Immediately, Vogel was placed in contention with incumbent Kurt Rambis for the Knicks spot.

“He’s probably been one of the most consistent NBA performers outside of Gregg Popovich,” Pitino said. “He’s gotten his teams to play great defense, to not create a lot of controversy, to play together and overachieve. This year especially with all the injuries they had.

“Frank has been there awhile now and this may be his best coaching job.”

Pitino stressed that Vogel has the perfect temperament to not just survive but thrive in New York — even if thrust into a triangle situation. He has the brains.

“Frank can adapt to anything. He’s got a great offensive and defensive mind,” Pitino said.

“What’s always misconstrued about the triangle, basketball is a game of triangles. There’s always two men on one side, three men on the other. Obviously they do more off the elbow post than other teams, but if you look at San Antonio, they do a lot of triangle situations. Now you [need] the personnel to go one-on-one in certain situations, like [Michael] Jordan, [Scottie] Pippen, Kobe [Bryant], Carmelo [Anthony].”

Vogel has the personality.

“He was the type of guy you never had to ask him to do anything, he already knew what to do and took it upon himself to get it done,” Pitino said. “[What] I loved most about him, he never wanted any credit for anything: ‘I have a job to do’ and did it. He never asked for credit, just did his job in a superb way.

“I always appreciated that Frank can handle a 100-game schedule. The media is never going to rattle him. Fans are not going to rattle him. He’s going to stay even keel and he’s going to do his job the right way and get the most out of his players. And players enjoy playing for him.”

Pitino and Vogel originally met at the Five-Star camp. In 1994, Vogel was at Division III Juniata in Pennsylvania and wrote to Pitino at Kentucky. Pitino told him he might be better served trying to land at a Big East school. Vogel said no, he wanted to learn Pitino’s defenses. He played on the JV team at Kentucky and eventually became a team manager.

“He worked his butt off, became a [graduate assistant], then an assistant video, then a video, then went with us to the Celtics as a video guy. He moved up the ladder the hard way,” Pitino said.