Much of the attention focused on the Knicks coaching staff so far this season misses the point. The “will he stay or will he go” drama surrounding head coach-team president Isiah Thomas ignores the basic point that the current Knicks roster is both extremely young and set in place. Because of the expensive long-term contracts of players like Stephon Marbury, Jamal Crawford, and Steve Francis, there is little flexibility to make significant trades until 2009. Instead of speculating about Isiah’s future, a far more salient question concerns what he will do at developing the young players on the Knicks roster. Whether Thomas is around next year or the year after that, Channing Frye, David Lee, and Renaldo Balkman will be.

The first signs in this regard — the buyouts and waiving of Maurice Taylor and Jalen Rose — were big gulps of fresh air in contrast with Larry Brown’s veteran-first attitude. Although the buyouts were pricey, each player received more than 75 cents on the dollar to go away and play for another team; it made a strong statement of commitment to the Knicks’ young players. The moves assured them playing time now and in the near future.

As fans in Chicago, Atlanta, and Boston would be happy to tell you, it takes more than playing time for young players to develop. However, Isiah has been in this position before. In his previous coaching stint, helming the Indiana Pacers between 2001 and 2003, he shepherded the development of several young players — helping them turn from prospects into productive NBA players.

Isiah’s coaching run isn’t remembered as a big success because of the achievements that preceded and followed him. Larry Bird, his predecessor as coach (and the man who returned to the Pacers three years ago as team president and showed Thomas to the door), compiled .687 winning percentage in his three seasons as coach between 1998 and 2000. His successor, Rick Carlisle, has managed a .593 winning percentage in three full seasons. Bird’s team went to the NBA Finals once and the Conference Championship twice; Carlisle’s first team made the Conference Championships. Thomas only mustered a .533 mark and three firstround exits, but that’s a reminder that rebuilding isn’t pretty.

Thomas transformed the Pacers from a team built around future Hall of Famer Reggie Miller and veterans Rik Smits, Antonio Davis, and Dale Davis into one built around younger players like Jermaine O’Neal, Al Harrington, Jonathan Bender, and Jamaal Tinsley.

Each of those players blossomed during Thomas’s run. Bender went from a teenager at the end of the bench to a quality reserve under Isiah. Harrington made a similar transition, getting only 854 minutes of burn and scoring 6.6 points a game during his season with Larry Legend and finishing the Thomas era with 2,467 minutes and 13.3 points and six boards a contest. Tinsley, stepped right into a starting role when he joined the Pacers as a rookie in 2002 and averaged 8.1 and 7.5 assists a game, his two highest per season totals of his career.

The biggest impact was made by O’Neal. He wasted away at the end of the Portland bench despite good PER’s — a metric developed by John Hollinger to measure the sum of a player’s statistical contributions on a per minute basis — but when traded to Indiana for Thomas’s first season, he immediately moved into the starting lineup. In Thomas’s final season in Indy, O’Neal posted his first 20-point, 10-rebound campaign. Also during Thomas’s time on the Pacer bench, Ron Artest went from a volatile young player to a star-caliber player. Thomas cleared out veterans like Rose (yeah, he was a vet even then), Mark Jackson, Travis Best, and Derrick McKey, to get playing time for his young guys.

Still, not even the most optimistic Knick fan looks at Frye and sees another O’Neal, but the only way to light the end of the tunnel for Knicks fans is to see the young players develop their full potential. The very early returns are encouraging in several respects. Eddy Curry is rebounding as never before, grabbing 8.3 a game (his career average is a laughably anemic 5.1), and he’s staying on the floor, getting 37 minutes a contest. With 19.8 points, 6.8 boards, and 54.3% shooting, Quentin Richardson is making the Kurt Thomas trade look not so one-sided. Lee is grabbing nine rebounds a game.

There are downsides too; Frye has played poorly so far, and Crawford is shooting a frightening 21.3% from the field, but it’s very early in the season. Still, both the Knicks off-season moves and their coach’s history suggest that all the young players will get every opportunity to establish themselves, and that most will succeed.

It makes some sense that Isiah is good at developing young players; drafting them is one of his unequivocal strengths. It’s not hard to imagine that the same vision that spots talented young players is useful in honing that talent.

Thomas revamped the Pacers from a veteran team that was a conference champion into a team that was ready to vie for the conference championship again by the time he left. That track record should give Knicks fans the most solace. Whether he stays or goes, the players are for the most part, staying, and if they develop, then Thomas’s successors will be in good position to fortify a team with a strong and young foundation.

mjohnson@nysun.com