The Knicks are five games under .500 and just one game out from the Atlantic Division lead, as of Wednesday night. What the heck is going on? The sports world would make more sense if the weakness of the Atlantic and the entire Eastern Conference was just an NBA phenomenon, but it’s not.

In each of America’s three most prominent leagues (the MLB, the NBA and the NFL), a significant disparity exists between leagues and conferences.

In baseball, it’s the American League holding a great advantage over the National League. Six of 16 NL teams finished under .500 in 2006, while the AL produced eight teams of 14 with winning records.

Head-to-head in inter-league play, the AL dominated the NL, going 154-98 this season, not even mentioning the fact that the senior circuit hasn’t been able to win an All-Star Game in a decade. However, the NL’s Midsummer Classic impotency is not too strong an indicator of the league’s weakness because All-Star teams are evenly matched with the cream of the crop from both leagues.

Sure, the Cardinals won the World Series this year with 83 wins, but anything can happen in the playoffs. The NBA is a clear example of this, two Eastern Conference teams, the Heat and the Pistons, have won NBA titles over the last three seasons.

But right now during this 2006-07 basketball season, the East is 26 games under .500 at 97-123. The West is faring practically the opposite at 30 games over .500 at 124-94. Only one East team has double-digit wins, the Orlando Magic, a team that hasn’t finished with a winning record since the 2002-03 season.

The Atlantic Division epitomizes the disgrace the East has become at a combined 21 games below .500.

And then there’s the NFL, where the NFC is a combined 20-32 against the AFC. Three of four AFC division leaders have nine wins or more, while only one NFC division leader, the Bears, has a record better than 7-4. The AFC is 94-82 and, surprise, the NFC is 82-94.

The AFC has also won the last three Super Bowls.

So, what’s going on? Sports are believed to be cyclic, and statistics hold that to be true. What’s so strange about the current situation is that there isn’t a great disparity in one sport, or even two — it’s America’s three most popular sports that are simultaneously lopsided.

The only sport in which there’s a semblance of balance is the NHL, where the East has 182 wins and the West 180. How ironic is it that America’s least popular major sport is in some way the most competitive at the moment?

Strangely enough, New York’s teams (the Giants, Jets, Mets, Rangers, Islanders, Yankees and even the Knicks) are all in relatively strong places right now.

The Giants and Jets both stand at 6-5; the Giants are falling below expectations, while the Jets are exceeding, but both teams have playoff chances. The Knicks, despite being five games under .500, are also in the playoff picture early in this NBA season, even if it is thanks to the East’s inferiority. The Mets and Yankees won their respective divisions this past season and are primed for another run next year, while the Rangers are in first place in the Atlantic division with the Islanders right behind in second place.

So what’s the lesson to take away from the phenomenon of the imbalance in the MLB, the NBA and the NFL? Watch hockey until the other sports balance themselves out over the next few years.