The Knicks have lost nine out of 10, four of them by routs, and have fallen from the perimeter of the playoff picture to the depths of the lottery. The tumble has led to a growing series of rumblings that drastic action is necessary, that either players should be traded or team officials should be fired.

In fact, drastic action is just what the Knicks don’t need right now. It will take a stiff upper lip, but the team would be best served to ride out the current storm. Trying to overhaul things now will only make a bad situation worse.

The outcry for change splits into two camps: Those who want to blow up the roster and those who want to blow up the front office. Neither solution is feasible. The roster is hard to change because of the salary cap. Yes, the Knicks’ $124 million payroll puts them ridiculously far over the cap, but 27 other teams are also over the cap. That means that for the Knicks to trade a player, they will have to take back a comparable salary. Thus, a trade of Stephon Marbury wouldn’t bring back draft picks or young players – it would net more older, overpaid players like Raef LaFrentz or Wally Szczerbiak.

There’s another good reason to leave the roster alone: youth. Isiah Thomas is guilty of many missteps during his two years as Knicks team president, but one of his unqualified successes is taking the team from being old and capped out to young and capped out.

The current roster features two 20-year-olds, center Jackie Butler and forward Trevor Ariza; one 21-year-old, guard Nate Robinson; two 22-year-olds, forwards Channing Frye and David Lee; one 23-year-old, center Eddy Curry; one 24 year-old, forward Qyntel Woods; and two 25-year-olds, swingman Quentin Richardson and guard Jamal Crawford. Basketball players generally peak in their late 20s, meaning nine players on the Knicks’ 15-man roster are still on the upward arcs of their careers. In fact, there’s more upside on the Knicks roster than there is on the trade market. Moreover, it’s foolhardy to trade young players at the lowest point of their value.

I have been sharply critical of Isiah Thomas during his tenure with the Knicks, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s terribly unwise to fire a team executive without giving him time to devise a plan and see it through. Thomas has had to sift through the wreckage of the Scott Layden era and develop and implement a plan of his own. There isn’t a precedent for a team as badly capped out as the Knicks returning to relevancy, so Thomas is navigating uncharted waters. That doesn’t forgive him for awful personnel moves like the Jerome James signing, but it should cut him more slack. If the team is still mired in the dumps this time next year, then sharpen the axe.

There are two other reasons for preserving the status quo in the Knicks front office. First, there is no clear and obvious replacement. Talent in the NBA may well be scarcest at the team president level. Every NBA team, with the possible exception of Detroit, has made key personnel missteps in the last two seasons. The person succeeding Thomas now would inherit a team with only two draft picks – both likely to be late in the first round – in the next two drafts. One of Thomas’s clear strengths is drafting in those positions (it’s where Robinson and Lee were found). The chances of landing another team executive with a comparable strength in draft strategy are pretty slim.

The second reason not to make a change in the front office is that a new team president would have a mandate to make moves, and considering the state of the trade market and the Knicks salary cap issues, such moves would only make the Knicks older and probably not much better.

The Knicks and their supporters also need to consider the context of this current losing streak. It was preceded by a six-game winning streak, highlighted by fine play from Frye and Marbury. Most of the losses have come either without Marbury or with him in a diminished capacity due to a shoulder injury and with Frye showing signs of hitting the rookie wall. Plus, starting forward Antonio Davis served his five-game suspension during this run. With their best player either out or hurting, their best young player slumping, and another starter out due to suspensions and injury, even the Spurs would struggle for a couple of weeks,and the Knicks are nowhere near that good.

The Knicks’ recent struggles are a reminder of why it’s hard to rebuild. It requires tremendous resourcefulness on the part of team officials and boatloads of patience from the fanbase. Resourcefulness we might have, but patience in New York is a dirty word to fans. Given the Knicks’ cap situation, the youth of their roster, and the likely scenarios that would follow a front-office change, now isn’t the time to hit the panic button.

mjohnson@nysun.com