Okay, I think I’ve finally got it. I’ve been trying real, real hard to find a silver lining in the Knicks’ disaster of a season, but I think it’s coming into view.

Maybe this is what needed to happen for us to finally appreciate Stephon Marbury.

Yes, perhaps he dominates the ball more than some would like. Maybe he defends less than some would like. And I suppose it wouldn’t kill him to crack a smile now and then, or at least a non-scowl. But his recent absence has shown just how important he is to the Knicks, and how ridiculous it is to blame him for the losing when such a Godawful supporting cast surrounds him.

For those who haven’t taken note, let’s recap. The Knicks won six games in a row at the start of January, their only stretch of quality basketball all season, and it looked like their season was finally turning around. Then Marbury hurt his shoulder in a collision with Wally Szczerbiak during a loss to Minnesota on January 16, and in the following 15 contests he either played ineffectively or missed the game entirely. New York’s record in those games? A spirit-breaking 1-14, and only a couple of the losses were even close.

That stretch proved how much the Knicks need Marbury – even in his diminished, Larry Brown-suffocated 2005-06 form. The chart below shows the staggering difference between the pre and post-injury Knicks. With Marbury, the Knicks were at least somewhat competitive. Their average margin of -3.1 points was in the same range as other mediocre fringe playoff-contenders like Utah, Toronto, and Orlando.

But without him? They’ve sunk to an average nightly beating of 12.5 points per game, a margin that if kept up for a full season would place the Knicks among the very worst teams in the game’s history. To put it into perspective, the Atlanta Hawks were 13-69 last year and their average margin was only -9.7. So if you’re thinking nobody’s ever looked worse than the Knicks of the past few weeks … it’s because almost nobody has.

Further, as the chart shows, it’s Marbury’s offense that the Knicks miss most. While New York’s defensive results have become slightly worse, they’ve lost more than seven points a game at the offensive end minus Marbury. It’s not hard to see why – until Jalen Rose’s arrival, Marbury was the only Knick who could create a shot at the end of the clock, and while he might not be an ideal point guard, he’s still 10 times the floor general of anybody else on the roster.

Moreover, the Knicks’ struggles without Marbury aren’t new phenomenon. Thanks to the folks at 82 games.com, we can check out how the Knicks fare when Marbury is on the court and compare it to when he isn’t. The results are shocking. In 2004-05, for instance, the Knicks were a reasonably competitive team when Marbury took the hardwood – they were outscored by only 0.4 points per 48 minutes, which made them essentially a .500 team.

Once he checked out, however, things got ugly fast. Opponents outscored the Knicks by 12.4 points per minutes without Steph, foreshadowing the recent 15-game disaster a year ahead of time. Again, what they missed mainly was his offensive repertoire. With Marbury on the court the Knicks were actually worse defensively, but without him they were completely lost on offense – going from a healthy 109.6 points per 100 possessions to a pathetic 93.3.

Even in Marbury’s first half-season in New York, the evidence came down in his favor, although the discrepancy was less glaring. In that campaign, the Knicks were 1.6 points per 48 minutes better with Steph on the floor, and again the main difference was on offense.

So for a guy who isn’t Larry Brown’s ideal point guard, he sure seems to have a positive impact on how the offense runs. For that matter, just why is Larry so down on the guy, anyway? Marbury has had a consistently low turnover rate on a team that seemingly can’t avoid coughing the ball up 20 times a night. He’s a more willing passer than most acknowledge, posting five double-digit assist nights in the eight games before he hurt his shoulder. And besides, Larry’s Olympic embarrassment in Athens would have been twice as bad if Marbury hadn’t single-handedly destroyed Spain in the quarterfinals.

Unfortunately, Marbury has never had great teammates around him to help reflect more credit on his own efforts. That’s partly his own fault – he never should have begged out of Minnesota when he had partners in crime like Kevin Garnett and Tom Gugliotta. But it’s also been a lot of bad timing – Amare Stoudemire blew up in Phoenix a year too late to help him, and the Nets seemingly became healthy the day after Marbury got traded to the Suns.

The lack of team success has put him square in the crosshairs because in the NBA, more than any other sport, the best player on a losing team gets it with both barrels from the press. I’ve never completely understood this – it’s Marbury’s fault that Nate Robinson can’t throw an entry pass and Jerome James has 98% body fat? Really? So is it Chris Bosh’s fault that Rafael Araujo can’t play? Is it Garnett’s fault that Kevin McHale keeps making idiotic personnel moves? Was it Kobe’s fault that Shaq got traded? (Actually, scratch that last one).

So Starbury ain’t perfect. Thanks for the news flash. But until further notice, he’s one of the best point guards in basketball, and vastly better than the rest of the dreck on the Knicks’ welfare state of a roster. Those efforts deserve our appreciation rather than our scorn, and maybe the Knicks play during his recent injury is the reality check we all needed in order to see it.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast. He can be reached at jhollinger@nysun.com.