Amar'e Stoudemire has vowed to come back a much better player than what he has been over the past two years and the New York Knicks believe him. The forward has been very adamant that he is keeping his health up and remains confident that he can prove a lot of people wrong this upcoming season after injuries have been a major issue in his production. As a result, the Knicks are not planning to limit the forward's minutes this season.
According to head coach Derek Fisher, Stoudemire can play as long as he wants as long as he stays healthy. For most of the past season, the forward could not play more than 30 minutes per game nor could he play the second of back-to-back matchups. The medical staff remained very cautious when it came to Stoudemire's troublesome knees to which he has had three surgeries on in the past 10 months.
"Right now there aren't any minute restrictions, or he can only play the front of a back to back, or any of that," Fisher said, via ESPN.com "If we can find ways to be consistent in [scheduling the rest days] then we don't have to judge in the game whether or not it's too many minutes or whether he can start or [not based on minutes restrictions]. So we're excited that we can go into the season with an open mind in that regard and it's worked well so far. The days we've had as recovery days for him, he's looked great coming back the next day and we think it's something that will work once the season starts."
Just because Stoudemire will not have any minutes restrictions placed on him does not mean he is guaranteed the starting job for the Knicks. With Samuel Dalembert penciled in as the center, the Knicks have been letting Andrea Bargnani and Quincy Acy start at power forward while Stoudemire comes off the bench. Fisher confirms that there is a battle at the forward position, noting health could play a factor and defensive abilities.
"We're kind of looking at some things," Fisher said , via Newsday.com. "We'll talk about the last four days as coaches, kind of what we observed during a lot of our scrimmages this week and a lot of our five-man activities. We've mixed the groups up a lot and we have some different guys in the frontcourt at times, different guys in the backcourt, so we'll kind of reassess who has been effective this week and try to put a good lineup together."
