Saturday, March 9, 2013

Amar'e Stoudemire to undergo knee surgery, will miss six weeks

Amar'e Stoudemire felt a little soreness in his knee and missed Saturday morning's shootaround to get an MRI which later revealed that he needs surgery on his right knee and will most likely miss the rest of the regular season and into part of the playoffs.

He has elected to have the knee debridement surgery sometime this week.

The injury comes just when the New York Knicks forward had made great strides this season after missing the first 30 games for the same surgery and adjusting to coming off the bench this year.

The loss of Stoudemire's 14.2 points a game will put a big hole in the offense and, the six week recovery timetable tweeted by the Knicks office, will make holding on to the No. 3 spot in the Eastern Conference — with the Nets and Bulls breathing down their necks — an uphill battle.







"I feel for Amar'e, because again he's put a lot of work in this summer, to get back out on the court, with what he went through at the beginning of camp," head coach Mike Woodson said. "And now he's got to go back in again. I feel for the young man because he puts so much time and hard work in. But you know we got to go on."



Stoudemire has been shooting 57.7% from the field this season and had come to grips with being a bench player after Woodson limited his game time to 30 minutes.

"You don't expect a key guy like that to continue to go down, because he's a big piece to the puzzle," said Woodson. Stoudemire had a debridement on his left knee in training camp. When Stoudemire missed the morning shootaround before playing the Utah Jazz, Woodson had an uneasy feeling.  He explained this was one reason he had put such a limit on his playing minutes. At the time, Woodson didn't know how serious it was.

"He's been very sufficient in terms of how he's been playing especially in the offensive end, and he's gotten better defensively," said Woodson.

"It's a loss, a major loss to what we're trying to do," said Woodson. "We're going to have to wait on him."



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