Before Bill Belichick cemented his status as one part Machiavelli, another part Mack the Knife, he did something that should have served as a tell, a clue that there is something twisted about the man.

For all Belichick’s transgressions listed and spoken, read and heard, last week, this one — telltale, I suspect — missed the cut:

It was January 2007, the Patriots, at home, had just defeated the Jets, 37-16, in a playoff game. Belichick was heading across the field toward Eric Mangini, the Jets coach and former Belichick assistant.

Belichick, after 12 seasons of NFL head coaching, was tailed by the usual and the expected: A coterie of credentialed photographers, this legion prepared to snap Belichick’s anticipated handshake with Mangini.

But suddenly, and for no apparent reason, Belichick whirled to his left in a rage, grabbed the large camera being held high by veteran Boston Globe sports photographer Jim Davis, then violently shoved the camera into Davis’s face.

One instantly could see Davis stagger, and sense he was injured. He was. Near an eye socket. Photographers’ careers begin and end with their eyes.

And, again, Davis wasn’t blocking Belichick’s path; he was behind him and slightly to the side, trying to keep up, making an honest living.

But Belichick “The Entitled” just kept going.

That night, Belichick should have been arrested, charged with an unprovoked battery. Instead, he got away with a phone call of apology to Davis.

And what did the NFL do about it? Fine him? Ban him from the Patriots next game, a playoff game?

Nah, the NFL did just what you would have expected — nothing, not a damned thing.

Moved by Denver’s hire of former longtime assistant and backup quarterback Gary Kubiak as head coach last week — in December Kubiak, white man, was fired by the Texans — Steven A. Smith, Tuesday on his SiriusXM show, hollered one of his racially incendiary and highly selective polemics:

Why are the same old “white coaches recycled” as NFL head coaches?! No black qualifiers?! Where, Smith rhetorically and simplistically — career specialties — demanded, are some new faces?!

Not that it matters to Smith, but the next day, as folks who follow sports already knew, the Jets would introduce Todd Bowles, African-American, as its head coach — Bowles’ first NFL head coaching gig.

Not that Smith would know — he is accomplished at posing loud as learned — but both Jim Caldwell (Colts, Lions) and Lovie Smith (Bears, Buccaneers) are current “recycled” African-American NFL head coaches. And Caldwell, with the Colts, succeeded Tony Dungy, African-American.

Mike Tomlin has been Steelers’ head coach since 2007; Marvin Lewis the Bengals’ head coach since 2003 — second-longest same-team tenure behind Bill Belichick. Tomlin and Lewis are African-American.

A frequent guest of Smith’s is ESPN compatriot Herm Edwards, African-American, who coached the Jets then — recycled — coached the Chiefs.

But, perhaps as a matter of career security, Smith often seems to holler “racism!” as a professional obligation. So what if it’s predicated on nonsense?

Beyond that, one of the most recycled, no-better-idea hires in sports TV and radio is Stephen A. Smith.

Even when ESPN posts a graphic designed to provide significant context, it proves that it has no sense of significant context.

Monday, during Pitt-Duke, ESPN attempted to statistically demonstrate Mike Krzyzewski’s success, comparing the first 75 years of Duke basketball to the last 35, under Krzyzewski. We learned Krzyzewski is the first Duke coach to have had a 30-win season, 13 of them!

Reader Ben Paulsen, good enough to have done the research, takes it from there:

Only eight Duke teams before Krzyewski even played 30 games — and three of those played exactly 30. Plus, there were no 30-game seasons in the first 45 years of Duke basketball, while Krzyzewski has coached 30 or more games in all of his 35 years at Duke.

How a sports giant the size and reach of ESPN can so consistently — as in 20 years — butcher realities through its shallow application of stats remains staggering.

By the way, not that ESPN would know or care, but the 1962-63 Duke team coached by Vic Bubas played 30 games, but won just 27 of them.

Reader Steve Arendash has a good question: How does the NHL’s TV partners, eager to add “hit” totals — any stat, any time! — determine what qualifies as a hit? “Is it a nudge? Or do only smashes into the boards qualify?”

And who determines what constitutes “a hit”? If it’s not the same person working all games — an impossibility — then the stat is even more ridiculous than at first glance.

Tony Verna, the TV producer/director/inventor who last week died at 81, was known as the founder of replay. It first appeared — Verna at the wheel — in CBS’ telecast of the 1963 Army-Navy game, which was delayed from Nov. 26 to Dec. 7 — Pearl Harbor Day — following the Nov. 22 assassination of President Kennedy.

Though video replay was designed by Verna, it was designed for Roger Staubach, for viewers to better enjoy the Navy star QB’s famous elusive scrambles. But the first replay to appear? Army QB Rollie Stichweh rolling left to score from 10 yards out!

Bronx kid Steve Lappas, ex-Villanova, Manhattan and UMass coach, continues to be an attention-keeper as a CBS Sports Network courtside and, as seen and heard Wednesday, studio college basketball analyst.

No frills, no neo-slick hoops gibberish, just plain, useful basketball talk — all spoken as if he is happy to be there.

St. John’s Red Storm did not wear its Nike black uniforms Tuesday against Marquette on Fox Sports 1. It wore its Nike gray uniforms. Still, the background of FS1’s score box indicated St. John’s was the team in red.

ESPN’s “SportsCenter” on Wednesday morning paid an unusual amount of attention to an NHL game. Of course it did. The Penguins-Flyers game, the night before, included four fights.

Go West, young fan! Jeff Hornacek’s Suns are overachieving, again. As of Friday, at 26-18, they didn’t have a scorer in the top 35. But at an average of 107.5 points, the Suns are third in NBA team scoring. Six Suns average 10 or more. What a concept! Funny, how teams that play as teams tend to overachieve.

Did some research: “Belichick” is Croat-Balkan for “corked bat.”