Amar’e Stoudemire finally was cleared for contact, and did some halfcourt work Saturday at practice. And though he had no idea when he will scrimmage for the Knicks, it was an auspicious sign and had both Stoudemire and coach Mike Woodson hoping the oft-injured forward could be ready by the Oct. 30 regular-season opener.
“I feel great,” said Stoudemire, still aiming to face the Bucks on opening night, as he had predicted two weeks ago. “It does [feel good] to finally be out there moving around. I feel strong. I feel I’m in great shape, so progress is working out, the hard work is paying off. I’m going to continue that progress.
“The goal is to be ready to start the season. We’ll see if that pans out.’’
Woodson labeled Stoudemire being cleared “a step in the right direction,’’ even though the road has been interminably long. This summer he had his third knee operation in the past 12 months, the latest arthroscopic surgery on both knees to clean out debris. The Knicks have babied Stoudemire in hopes of getting him ready to start the season.
“If there’s no setbacks, we hope he’ll be there for opening night,’’ Woodson said. “We’ll have some practice time prior to us opening and we’ll scrimmage a lot more and try to hopefully tailor some minutes in the scrimmage that will carry over into the regular season. It’s a day at a time. We’ve just got to make sure he doesn’t have any setbacks to get to that point. That’s kind of my goal.’’
“He had contact [Saturday], which was kind of nice to see. He went through all the conditioning, went through our shell, he had all the contact in the halfcourt. We just have to see how he feels [Sunday]. That’s the key, making sure he doesn’t have any setbacks and we continue to build.’’
If his knees aren’t sore, his head might be. Stoudemire took a shot to the head during practice, and sat on a chair and iced the bruise while the team took part in fullcourt scrimmages. Still, better a bruise than inactivity.
“I got hit pretty hard,’’ Stoudemire grinned ruefully, shaking his head. “Rookies. Tim Hardaway Jr. got me.”
“Today was a great practice, we really got after it, had a lot of emotion out there. We played aggressive on both ends. It’s fun to be a part of.’’
Stoudemire took part in some of the Knicks’ three-on-two and two-on-one work, and all of their five-on-five shell defensive drills, during which he claimed he felt “explosive” and Woodson said he “did pretty well.” Now after Stoudemire takes off Sunday’s practice at Columbia, the next step will be to scrimmage fullcourt.
“I’m sure it’ll happen soon. We’re just taking precautionary measures, still just taking our time,’’ said Stoudemire, who will go on the road trip to Toronto and Green Bay, Wis., in hopes of scrimmaging.
“We had to take the step first with the shell just to see if he could take the contact,” Woodson said. “We’ll gauge it [Sunday] and see how he feels. We’re taking him out on the road with us and we’ll see where we are.’’
Last season, Stoudemire averaged 14.2 points, 5.0 rebounds and 23.5 minutes in 29 games. But he shot 57.7 percent, his highest mark since 2007-08.
“I can’t wait to get out there 100 percent,” he said. “I want to see the efficiency continue from what I started last year. It’s all about being efficient. My goal is to be the most efficient player in this league.’’