In a perfect New York, New York world, this absurdly improbable road victory over Golden State would send the Knicks on a tear that lands them in the playoffs for a second straight year. Beyond that, it would validate Leon Rose’s decision to keep his mismatched band intact — even if it wasn’t really his decision.

Sports can be a wild and crazy place. The Knicks had lost 10 of 12 to land with the heaviest thud in 12th place in the Eastern Conference, and they had no business beating the 41-14 Warriors at their place, or any place, especially with RJ Barrett too hobbled to play. But beat them the Knicks somehow did Thursday night, 116-114, with Julius Randle advancing his recent resurgence with 28 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists, and with Klay Thompson missing an open foul-line jumper in the final seconds.

Could this be the start of something real? Sure, anything’s possible in the NBA.

More likely, the 25-31 Knicks will revert to their uninspired 2021-22 form, and stand as an indictment of their team president’s second-year work after an impressive Year 1.

At the very least Thursday, as the trade deadline approached, Rose needed to clear some perimeter space for Cam Reddish, given that he’d surrendered a first-round pick for him. But nobody wanted Rose’s players or Rose’s contracts, and one quick survey of the standings will explain why.

Early last season, when asked about his desire to acquire stars, Tom Thibodeau said his front office needed “to be very aggressive in seeking out those opportunities. They just don’t happen by accident. You have to make them happen.”

Nobody was asking Rose at this deadline to make a seismic deal happen. He was never going to rock the league the way Brooklyn and Philly did in the James Harden-Ben Simmons trade. 

But Rose had to do something, anything, to change or at least tweak this roster and provide something of a reset. If nobody wanted Randle, Evan Fournier, Kemba Walker, Nerlens Noel and Alec Burks in deals big and small, Rose should go plant himself in front of a mirror. He’s the one who signed or re-signed all those guys last summer.

Truth is, a lot of Knicks are having disappointing seasons, with Randle and Thibodeau at the front of the line. Thursday night’s upset victory notwithstanding, Rose is having a worse year than all of them. He acquired a small, aging, injured, non-defending point guard in Walker for a coach who didn’t want a small, aging, injured, non-defending point guard. The team president gave Fournier a four-year, $78 million deal, and then tried to trade him not even four months into his Knicks career.

And what are the Knicks to do with young Mr. Reddish, who got some meaningful playing time against the Warriors with Barrett out, and made the most of it with a dozen points and three assists in 19 minutes? Barrett will be back and Derrick Rose will be returning to claim his minutes, and perhaps Walker will be cut loose when he does. That doesn’t help Reddish or Leon Rose, who can’t justify sacrificing a first-round pick for someone who will return to Thibodeau’s bench when everyone is healthy.

If his coach didn’t want Reddish to begin with, why did Rose acquire him? Thibodeau expressed his love for his former CAA agent and called him “very pragmatic” for not forcing a trade that wasn’t there. Really? The coach and the team president are supposed to be longtime friends, and yet sometimes they have the funniest ways of showing it.

In fairness, Rose can take a bow for hiring Thibodeau, and for making the complementary moves that helped inspire last season’s 41-31 breakthrough. That can’t be taken away from him.

And yet his work ever since has raised fresh doubts about whether this agent turned front-office novice has a handle on what he’s doing. In the offseason, Rose let go of a player Thibodeau wanted to keep (Reggie Bullock) and brought in two who didn’t fit the Thibs prototype. Meanwhile, Randle hasn’t been last year’s Randle most of the time, and the result has been a season that all but dishonors the one that preceded it. These Knicks are so vulnerable, they’ve appeared lost without Derrick Rose, a 33-year-old playmaker with bum wheels.

“I like our team,” Thibodeau insisted before the deadline. That would put him in a small minority of Knicks fans.

Thibs is forever answering for the Knicks’ woes and, to a lesser extent, so are the players. But Leon Rose has made a habit of hiding from public accountability. The Post requested an interview with him for this column through a Knicks spokesman, and was told the team would be back in touch if the team president was doing any talking. No such notice came.

Leon Rose sure has some explaining to do, even after beating Golden State. A lot of Knicks were having bad years entering Thursday night. Just not as bad as Rose’s.