Amar’e Stoudemire’s days with the New York Knicks may be numbered. He still was not ready to return to the team in time for its drubbing at the hands of the Boston Celtics last night in front of the home crowd at Madison Square Garden.
The NBA trade deadline is coming up on February 19th and the Knicks would love to dump his salary from their books. Stoudemire’s contract is also up after this season.
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The basketball player has been suffering from wrist, ankle and knee problems. While not actually Jewish, Stoudemire considers himself to be a Black Hebrew. He feels a very strong link to the Jewish people and even coached the Canadian national basketball team to the 2013 Maccabiah Games in Israel.
Knicks’ coach Derek Fisher said of his player, “I think for Amar’e or any athlete as you evolve and continue to age, you have to continue to be smart about where your limits are. Amar’e, considering his past and his history, has been one of the best I’ve seen at being as engaged and involved in his own process as any guy I’ve seen in a long time.”
“I think for Amar’e it’s just been a cumulative effect. I don’t think the Chicago game or anything just this season was something that put him over the edge.”
“I think that he actually was willing to sacrifice how he might feel for the betterment of the team because of all the other injuries that we had sustained prior to that time during the season, ” Fisher said. “Had we had some other guys that have been healthier, then we probably would’ve been able to find a better balance for Amar’e, but our team was struggling and he wanted to be a part of turning this thing around.
“So I’ll always respect and admire his approach and now I just want to make sure that, with that knowledge, that anything we do going forward we keep in mind that we have to maybe be the bad guys for him and work with him just to make sure that he’s doing not just what’s best for him as a basketball player, but we want him to have a healthy life at whatever point his basketball career is done. So all of that stuff factors into it.”
