As we near the three-quarter mark of the NBA season, it’s become obvious to all but the most deluded of Knicks fans that the playoffs are out of reach this year. So we should turn our attention to the next great prize in the NBA: the lottery. A lower finish means more ping-pong balls in the annual drawing in May to determine draft order. Knicks fans who are dreaming of University of Memphis guard Derrick Rose running the point, or Kansas State University forward Michael Beasley ruling the paint, may start hoping that the Knicks lose as many of their remaining games as possible.

Losing has not posed a problem for the Knicks in recent years: The team has lost 157 games in the last three full seasons, and they are on pace to lose 57 games this season. The problem is that the Knicks aren’t the only team with dreams of ping-pong balls. The Minnesota Timberwolves (12–45) and Seattle SuperSonics (15–42) have dedicated their season to lottery position. The Miami Heat (11–45) mistakenly thought they were a playoff team until their current stretch of 27 losses in 30 games clarified that issue. The Memphis Grizzlies (14–45) are in the difficult Southwest Division. The Charlotte Bobcats (19–39) and the Los Angeles Clippers (19–38) find themselves in this mix due to a bad run of injuries. Let’s take a closer look at how competition will stack up for the top draft picks.

The team with the best chance of landing the most ping-pong balls in the draft is Miami. Despite the presence of All-Star guard Dwyane Wade, high-flying forward Shawn Marion, and Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley, the Heat is losing night after night. They simply lack quality players to compete. Wade is playing through a variety of ailments, so if Miami wants to nail down the worst record in the league, all they really need to do is sit him for a few weeks. Given Wade’s reckless style of playing, losing him for the season would be a wise move to ensure his availability for games in the future that they want to win.

Minnesota has been a one-man team for most of the season. Forward Al Jefferson, the centerpiece in the raft of players they received in exchange for Kevin Garnett, has played like an All-Star, while most of his teammates have played like scrubs. If the T-Wolves need to preserve their draft position, the solution is fairly simple: Jefferson will need to sit. But they are losing a lot with him in the lineup, so they have the luxury of developing their young nucleus while looking to add another cornerstone in the draft.

Seattle is tanking for two reasons: They would like to add more young players to support swingman Kevin Durant and forward Jeff Green, and they would like to alienate the local fan base as much as possible as the team angles to relocate to Oklahoma City. They are accomplishing both. When they started winning near the trade deadline, the team moved quickly to trade former Knicks pivotman Kurt Thomas to San Antonio for a first-round draft pick. They also dumped forward Wally Szczerbiak and guard Delonte West to Cleveland for more future draft picks. With much of their scoring and veteran leadership gone, the Sonics are poised to lose, and lose big — Friday night, they lost to Miami by double digits in Seattle — for the remainder of the season.

The Grizzlies own the longest losing streak of any of these teams — eight games — but they are in an odd position. On the one hand, they play in a brutally tough division and a ferocious Western Conference. But their roster is already stocked with fantastic young talent such as forward Rudy Gay and three guards, Mike Conley Jr., Kyle Lowry, and Javaris Crittenden. Add in rookie backcourt import Juan Carlos Navarro and swingman Mike Miller, and you have a team that could be a playoff contender in the Eastern Conference. Their rugged schedule insures that the Griz will lose quite a bit; but against good teams who take them lightly and against other mediocre teams, they will win a few.

The Charlotte Bobcats and Los Angeles Clippers are in the mix because of injuries as much as anything else. A run of better health and some returning players will probably raise them to the level of merely bad, instead of miserable.

So how can the Knicks compete with this level of loser-dom? Forty percent of the Knicks’ scoring comes from two players, forward Zach Randolph and guard Jamal Crawford. If Crawford’s shoulder injury starts acting up again, or if Randolph suffers a recurrence of the foot injury that kept him on the sidelines for Saturday night’s debacle in Orlando, then the Knicks offense (moribund as it already is) will struggle to put up 85 points nightly. With a defense that has ranked as one of the worst in the league since the days of the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Knicks might top their projected loss total. Either way, they seem like a sure bet for a top-5 pick, and depending on whether their competition tanks, they could finish even higher up in the draft. A top draft pick would be the first step in a long rebuilding process at the Garden.

mjohnson@nysun.com