At the risk of blasphemy, I don’t take LeBron James.

If I have the No. 1 pick and can somehow trade it while still getting Carmelo Anthony, that’s what I do. I trade the rights to James to a team desperate enough to give me value for all the overinflated hype James brings with him, and the seats it will fill, and drop to No. 2 or 3. And then I make my team better more immediately with Anthony than I do with James.

You can have your season-ticket sales and your magazine covers. I’ll take the guy who makes my team better on the court and in the standings right away. I’ll take the guy I’ve already seen dominate men, as opposed to James, who has been dunking on boys.

I eliminate the guesswork in trying to project whether a kid who already has a $90 million sneaker contract before bouncing his first pro basketball will get swallowed by the NBA’s intoxicants and take the player I’ve seen win a championship as the best player on the best team at a higher level.

Anthony is ready for the NBA right now. James isn’t, no matter how much buzz he gets. If it took Kobe Bryant a season and Tracy McGrady two before they even reached double digits in scoring average after high school, James won’t be doing it as a rookie, either.

Bryant and McGrady, it should be noted, had virtually identical high school numbers to James. What they didn’t have was James’ hype because the great media machine hadn’t made its way into high schools yet.

So here comes the more mature Anthony, with the great name, the smooth game and the charming smile. At 6-foot-8, 220 pounds, he is already bigger than Bryant and McGrady, and growing.

In a much quieter way, without the magazine covers, Anthony dominated high school kids much the same way James did — and has since gained 40 pounds. Then, in his first and only year in college, he won the championship.

At Syracuse, Anthony averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds a game against far better competition than the pimple-faced teens James was dunking on. While Anthony was winning a national title, and becoming only the third freshman to be named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, James was dunking on 5-7 high schoolers from Ohio, averaging 31 points and 10 rebounds.

This is not meant as indictment of James as much as it is tribute to Anthony. He played at a higher level than James. It remains a difficult thing, projecting high school talent, no matter how successful the Kevin Garnetts of the world have been.

The last high school player to get huge buzz was named Felipe Lopez, and he was like Cote’s arguments — he didn’t amount to much.

James will be great. But so will Anthony, and sooner.