It is not a problem that the Knicks are losing these days: With the playoffs all but mathematically out of reach, the team is better served by losses than wins, and each loss puts them in a better position to secure a top draft pick this spring. But how the Knicks are losing is a problem. They should be prioritizing the development of their young players. Instead, they are merely playing them and not looking to give them the best opportunities to hone their skills.

Burn is certainly helpful for young players. They need to acclimate to the pace of the NBA game, which is much faster than the college ranks and somewhat faster than the European game. Also, the elements of practice — particularly plays and teamwork — are built via repetition in game conditions. The Knicks have several first- and second-year players who need as much burn as possible during the final quarter of the season, so the team can get a solid sense of where they stand with them. On the surface, the track record looks good. Rookie forward Wilson Chandler is starting. Second-year swingman Renaldo Balkman is the Knicks’ best defender, despite playing only 14 minutes a game; he notched 27 in Monday night’s loss to Indiana. Pivotman Randolph Morris, a player who has seemed glued to the end of the bench most of the year, played a season-high 18 minutes in Sunday’s loss to Atlanta. Second-year guard Mardy Collins played 24 minutes on Monday night.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that little effort has been made to ensure that the playing time amounts to anything other than some NBA action for their resume. It has become increasingly apparent that Isiah Thomas and most of his coaching staff won’t be with the team next year. But they still have a job to do for 15 games, and that includes developing the young players for the future. From the substitution patterns, you’d think they were spending the game filling out their brackets.

Take Morris’s 18 minutes against the Hawks on Sunday: When he was brought in, the Hawks were in their small ball unit, often playing forward Josh Smith in the pivot. Morris is a very poor matchup against Smith, one of the quickest and most athletic players in the NBA. Forced to guard a player whose skill set was nothing like his own, Morris picked up foul after foul and was disqualified after only 18 minutes. The following night in Indiana, the Pacers played Jeff Foster and David Harrison, two conventional centers whose skill sets are close matches for Morris. But Morris played only six minutes.

By contrast, Atlanta’s bevy of athletic, big guards and forwards would seem like the perfect showcase for Balkman’s skills. But he, too, played 18 minutes against the Hawks. Collins is a defensive stopper, but he was told to shoot at will against Indiana and bricked seven of his 10 shots.

Like many actions during Thomas’s reign, this is silly beyond words. It’s the baseball equivalent of breaking in a rookie pitching prospect by having him face the middle of the batting order in a close game, rather than having him do mop-up duty during a rout so he can get his sea legs.

Thomas’s misuse of the bench has been a constant during his time as coach, so I shouldn’t be so surprised that he can’t figure out a rational way of guiding the development of the Knicks’ youngest players. It should also please the person that takes over this team that, despite the Knicks’ poorly matched collection of talent and bizarre deployment of it, the team has to sit its top scorers — guard Jamal Crawford and forward Zach Randolph — in the second halves of games to come up on the short end of the final score.

At this point, the Knicks are19–48 and in full tank mode. It’s fair, therefore, to wonder if Thomas will set a franchise record for losses. It would be incredibly appropriate for an administration that had the opposite of a Midas touch when it came to personnel deals to end by being the first Knicks team to lose 60 games. New York has lost 59 games in three seasons — under Larry Brown two seasons ago, under Hubie Brown in 1986, and under Eddie Donovan in 1963. But never in their proud history have they lost 60.

If the Knicks are to reach that dubious depth, then this week and next are crucial. They play Memphis tomorrow night and Minnesota on Saturday. After playing the Nets (whom they have owned this season) on Monday, the Knicks play Miami on Wednesday. In other words, three of the Knicks’ next four opponents have already crossed the 50 loss threshold. Losses might put the Knicks in good position to squeeze past the Grizzlies or T-Wolves in the battle for a better lottery position. It’s the not the right kind of big game — but it’s the only one the Knicks will get under Thomas.

mjohnson@nysun.com