DID you ever think you’d miss “fugazy” so much? That was only three months ago. For once, after all these years of false starts and fake promises, we’d gotten ourselves a Knicks-Nets series with a little heat attached to it, a little juice. The Nets looked like they were ready to sprint back to the NBA Finals. The Knicks were in the playoffs for the first time in three years.

In New York City, the once and forever capital of basketball, it was enough to make a guy dream a little bit of what could be possible across the next few years. Then Tim Thomas went up at the Meadowlands, and Jason Collins took out his legs, and Thomas missed the rest of the series, and then decided to engage in a little social commentary.

He called Kenyon Martin “fugazy.” A fake tough guy, borrowed from the movie “Donnie Brasco.”

It was plenty good to fill up the back page for a couple days, not good enough to fire the Knicks up to avoid being swept, but, hey, there was always tomorrow we figured.

There would always be next year, right? These rivals were just getting started, weren’t they? The Nets were still the Nets, full of young stars in their prime. Isiah Thomas was tinkering with the Knicks. He’d come up with something, wouldn’t he?

That was only three months ago. Now, if you happen to be a basketball fan in New York City, you wake up in the morning and you cringe before snapping open your newspaper. Every day, the Nets allow one of those stars to waltz away for a song.

Every day, we see Isiah going after another name – Jamal Crawford! Erick Dampier! – that doesn’t exactly inspire visions of DeBusschere-for-Bellamy.

And suddenly, it’s clear that “fugazy” – or its memory, anyway – is all we’re left with. That may be the high point of what we really thought was a burgeoning basketball renaissance in a city that would have known how to enjoy it better than any other.

Now, when the Nets move to Brooklyn, if they move to Brooklyn, they will arrive as a glorified expansion team, stripped for parts and foisted upon the Borough of Churches in serious need of last rites. Kenyon Martin and Kerry Kittles are already gone. Jason Kidd is sure to stomp his feet until he’s sent on his way. And Richard Jefferson will undoubtedly play for food somewhere, anywhere, rather than re-sign with this basketball ghost town.

Brooklyn has waited 47 years for the return of major league sports. Now, more than ever, it’s clear the wait will continue long after the Nets ever hand out change-of-address cards.

And the Knicks? Well, the Knicks have reclaimed their spot atop the New York basketball firmament, but it’s been a hollow victory, sort of like the way the old Soviet premiers used to win by landslides in unopposed elections. The Knicks are, essentially, the same as we left them three months ago: Stephon Marbury is the one legit All-Star.

Allan Houston’s knee still howls at him. Kurt Thomas is at home, dreaming up new ways to draw technical fouls.

And other than that, you have a blurry batch of pedestrian players lugging around a bunch of untradeable contracts. Which means Knicks fans, in a lot of ways, are entitled to be even more frustrated than Nets fans (all six of them).

Because as the summer has progressed, every few days, you hear of another bluechip star that longs to play for New York.

First, it was Vince Carter. Then Antoine Walker. You have to think that Shaq would have been intrigued at the prospect of bringing his act to New York, but his contract would have been a financial impossibility even if Isiah had decided to woo Shaq.

And none of this is even remotely do-able. So we get those daily updates on Jamal Crawford (lifetime shooting percentage: .397) and Erick Dampier (whose career-best 2003-04 numbers of 12.3 points and 11.9 rebounds were either the sign of an epiphany or a contract push), and you know, you just know Isiah Thomas dreams daily about the kind of roster he could put together if he were playing under baseball’s rules.

Knicks fans can dream that way too.

Which gives them something, anyway. Around the city’s basketball landscape, that makes them runaway winners. Nets fans don’t dream, because they don’t dare close their eyes for fear the baskets and the balls will be next on the fire-sale block. Even St. John’s fans, who have reason to be hopeful long-term under Norm Roberts, understand there’s going to be a lot of agony between now and then.

Yeah. We should have enjoyed “fugazy” while it lasted.

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VAC’SWHACKS

You think in 20 years Ricky Williams is going to think it was all worth it, throwing away that big contract with the Dolphins all so he could blissfully smoke reefer without The Man getting on his case? At least Jim Brown walked away for “The Dirty Dozen.” You think Tom Coughlin enjoys knock-knock jokes?

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Chad Pennington has generated a lot of good feelings around the Jets the past few years, and that optimism is clearly warranted. But the Jets certainly have the right to watch Pennington perform over an entire 16-game schedule before handing him the deed to Weeb Ewbank Hall.

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The longer the Texas Rangers stay in the playoff hunt this year, the more Buck Showalter’s reputation gets restored to where it should be, which is only right. Yankees fans should never forget the debt they owe Showalter.

Ever.