I’m pretty sure Amar’e Stoudemire doesn’t want to hear any of this and will use it as motivation as he works out in the offseason with Hakeem Olajuwon again. Hopefully Stat will fully heal and make a nice comeback next season, but for now the Knicks are unsure of a starting role for him. Report after the jump…
Via Jared Zwerling at ESPN:
The New York Knicks are unsure whether Amar’e Stoudemire, their highest-paid player, will return to a starting role next season.
Knicks coach Mike Woodson told reporters that he would not commit to a starting position for Stoudemire, who will make $21.68 million next season and $23.41 million in 2014-15 — the final year of his contract.
“I haven’t made that decision,” Woodson said Tuesday. “I’ll have this summer to kind of evaluate where I go with that. First things first, he’s got to come back healthy.”
Knicks general manager Glen Grunwald said he is “hopeful” that Stoudemire will be healthy. But if not, Woodson said a minutes restriction “may be the case” for the six-time All-Star forward, like it was during the playoffs.
If Stoudemire is fully healthy — he had a debridement procedure on each knee during the regular season — the team envisions a big role for the 30-year-old forward. Stoudemire averaged 14.2 points, on 57.7 percent shooting, and 5.0 rebounds in 29 games this past season despite playing just 23.5 minutes per game.
“He’s a heck of a player,” Grunwald said. “The question is his health and how much he can play. So we’ve got our medical staff and training staff working with him to design an offseason program that will get him to full health.
“We hope he’ll be able to play significant minutes for us next year. How much that will be, we don’t know at this time. But when he came and played for us … he was, as [Woodson] said, a big factor in those games.”
(Story Continues…)
