Every time Donovan Mitchell has been spotted in and around New York City the past few months, it has been the basketball equivalent of the summer flame who makes sure to catch your eye just long enough and just often enough to make your heart flutter regularly.

Mitchell took BP and threw out the first pitch before a Brooklyn Cyclones game in July, and there were swoons in the stands at Maimonides Park. Mitchell attended a Mets-Yankees game at Citi Field in July, and when fans spotted him, they cooed some more. He checked in at Rucker Park last week, took pictures with the kids, and you could almost see their pulses all quicken.

Good stuff, Mitchell, Knicks fan, making the rounds of the big town.

“Donovan,” Rick Pitino told The Post’s Marc Berman on Tuesday, “would treasure being a Knick.”

But Mitchell remains a Utahn. He remains a member of the Jazz. Danny Ainge and Leon Rose have danced a deliberate dance the past seven weeks or so, making proposals, making counter-proposals, generating momentum on some days and inevitably dissolving that thrust a few days later.

They are at a stalemate now.

And it makes sense that they are at a stalemate.

Ainge and Rose are at different points along their front-office journeys. Ainge has been doing this for parts of three decades; Rose for three years. Ainge has built one team out of the dust in Boston that enabled the hanging of a 17th championship banner, and left behind enough building blocks that they nearly earned an 18th this summer; Rose had some early speed with the Knicks, then endured a stifling sophomore slump.

But both men are equally motivated to win this deal, and both have important reasons why. Ainge has already tipped his hand he is starting to clear the decks in Salt Lake City, and so his chief commerce is young players and draft picks. Rose arrived with a reputation built on spec that he was going to be the magnet to attract stars to New York. Mitchell is such a star.

But Rose also knows he has to both identify and hold fast to whatever line it is that he can’t, and won’t, cross, no matter how natural a fit Mitchell would be at the Garden. As a basketball poker player, Ainge is Amarillo Slim. He fleeced one of his oldest friends, Kevin McHale, on the way to building the Celtics. He must see Rose as an easy mark, even from 2,171 miles away.

And Rose can’t afford to be that mark. He can’t afford to be seen as the driver of the turnip truck. This is his first legit stare-down. It is important for him to make Mitchell a Knick, but it is not imperative. There’s a difference. You can be aggressive without handing over the whole store; there a difference there, too.

Rose doesn’t have to search to find a precedent for this. Wherever you fall on the Carmelo Anthony Meter — and I’ve long been on record saying his was a valuable and important time with the Knicks — almost everyone can agree that the Knicks got played by the Nuggets, handing Denver a blank check when a little patience would’ve yielded the same player.

This isn’t quite the same. Mitchell is not a pending free agent, and so there will have to be some kind of deal. But it has to be the right kind of deal. Mitchell and Jalen Brunson, alongside RJ Barrett and a rejuvenated Julius Randle, sure feels like four-fifths of a team that could present an awful lot of intrigue going forward, but that only would become real if the Knicks retain the ability to reasonably acquire that fifth Beatle when they identify him.

From 30,000 feet, it’s hard to imagine the Jazz can find a better trade partner. The Knicks have, in abundance, what Utah craves. The Jazz have the player New York covets. Ainge can make a terrific deal and feel good about himself and allow Rose to feel good about himself, too. There is no requirement to hustle anyone. Rose has to know that. Don’t go all-in on the flop. Wait for the river. Check, check, check.

Even Amarillo Danny should be able to respect that.