NY- Former Knicks forward Tim Thomas will have two unlikely cheerleaders rooting for him now that he’s been traded to the Chicago Bulls – his estranged wife and his equally estranged mistress.

Both ladies have a stake in the hoop star because they’d each like a piece of his $26 million salary.

Thomas just got slapped with a Manhattan Family Court petition for support from Aasyia Muslim, a 27-year-old beauty who says he’s the father of her 15-month-old son, Amauri.

Muslim says that, back when he was playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, Thomas set her up in an apartment and encouraged her to quit her job. It wasn’t till a year into their three-year romance, she says, that she learned he had a wife, Natricia, and two children. “He convinced me he was getting a divorce,” she tells us.

When Thomas was traded to the Knicks, Muslim says he had her moved to a luxury condo in New Jersey, leased her a sleek BMW X5, and sent her daughter from a previous relationship to private school.

After she gave birth to Amauri, she says, her monthly expenses, which Thomas paid, ran as much as $35,000.

Everything was fine, she says, until Thomas’ wife found his secret cell phone.

“Natricia called me,” says Muslim. “We’ve talked a couple of times. I needed to apologize to her. I should have ended it. But I was deeply in love with him. Natricia said she could tell Tim was more serious about me than his other girls.”

Soon after, Muslim says, Thomas ordered her and Amauri out of the condo.

Since then, she’s been living with her sister in Milwaukee. That’s where, Thomas argues, all paternity and custody issues should be heard.

Muslim’s lawyer, Suzanne Kimberly Bracker, suspects that’s because, “under Wisconsin law, he’d have to support Amauri till he was 18, rather than 21.”

Thomas’ lawyer, Gerard Gilliam, argues that neither his client nor Muslim lives in New York. “Mr. Thomas has never run from his responsibilities,” says Gilliam.