MLB

New Knicks can take lesson from Yankees, to make it in City, you need … Big Apple juice

Hideki Matsui (CHARLES WENZELBERG)

Randy Johnson (AP)

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TAMPA — Sometimes it works. Hideki Matsui comes to mind. Sometimes it doesn’t. Hideki Irabu comes to mind.

Sometimes it takes a while to work. Alex Rodriguez comes to mind. Sometimes it takes a while to fall apart. Chuck Knoblauch comes to mind.

Sometimes concerns about handling the stage vanish quickly. CC Sabathia comes to mind. Sometimes those concerns last and last. Randy Johnson comes to mind.

No franchise is more familiar with obtaining superstars, integrating them onto the team and living with the results than the Yankees. So no franchise better understands what the Knicks and Carmelo Anthony are experiencing right now, especially because the teams share a common first name.

“It is New York, so you better want to be here,” Rodriguez said. “It is New York. They will see from a mile away if you don’t want to be here.”

Anthony wanted New York since, like Rodriguez, he forced a trade out of where he was to get there. Still, as much as he thought he wanted to come, Rodriguez needed years to truly adapt; to gain comfort with the expectations, scrutiny and magnitude of being a mega-star in New York. Sabathia was comfortable from the outset. Johnson never embraced the challenges. Which will Anthony be most like?

This is not apples to apples. Baseball and basketball, after all, are distinct sports. But there are enough parallels when it comes to importing a star to the Big Apple that the Yankees can offer a textbook on the do’s and don’ts of the subject. Anthony already passed one of the “do’s” by wanting New York. Here are a few others for team and player:

DON’T MAKE ONE MAN AN ISLAND

This is harder in basketball because a singular player can dominate. But Amar’e Stoudemire’s starry presence should help as long as Anthony allows it and as long as the team does not forget to share responsibility.

“You realize that no matter what player you put with the Yankees, no individual is going to be solely responsible for their success,” said agent Scott Boras, who was instrumental in moving Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira, among others, to the Yankees. “The Yankees are a star community, and so a new star should feel the comfort of coming where there are other stars.”

But even the presence of a galaxy does not always help. Rodriguez and Roger Clemens, for example, felt the stress of both fitting in and living up to huge expectations.

The Yankees worked best when their stars felt such confidence in one another that they dispersed pressure. Cone believed in Pettitte, who believed in Jeter, who believed in Bernie, who, well, you get the idea. Their belief that the other would succeed made it less pressurized for any individual Yankee to do his job.

The advent of the Yankees mercenary — best embodied by Jason Giambi,

Rodriguez and Johnson — indulged players who believed if they did not succeed, the team could not succeed. That created an extra burden on the individual and greater stress on the whole. The 2009 champions were helped because Sabathia and Teixeira arrived together, which helped deflect solo attention.

“I know Carmelo is the big guy in the trade,” Rodriguez said. “But don’t diminish the importance of Chauncey Billups. He is a veteran, a champion and a leader. The fact he is coming with Carmelo could be like Tex and CC.”

LOWER EXPECTATIONS

That nearly is impossible around the banner-or-bust Yankees. But general manager Brian Cashman has a saying: “Underpromise and overperform.” He thought that motto would help these Knicks.

A championship is not expected. Nevertheless, the Knicks must make the playoffs and probably win at least a round to be deemed a success. But they are now recalibrating with new players. So leave the predicting to others.

“The enormity of New York is going to be there no matter how much you talk,” Cashman said. “Why talk and make it tougher?”

VALUE THE TOUGH-MINDED

The Yankees definitely consider which players they think can handle New York. For example, as badly as they needed starting pitching, the Yankees did not go hard after Zack Greinke in the offseason, fearing the righty was not mentally equipped for the City.

From Syracuse to Denver, Anthony is used to being the focus. Still, he has never dealt with the scale of analysis and expectation that is now his life. Matsui, for example, handled it all with dignity in two languages. Johnson pushed a cameraman on Madison Avenue on the way to take his Yankees physical.

“You can do anything you want to make it easier for someone,” Jorge Posada said. “But people who are weak upstairs, they can’t make it in New York.”

joel.sherman@nypost.com