He was the first one who said it, whether or not he really believed it, or understood it. This was July 5, 2010, and Amar’e Stoudemire and the Knicks had just agreed to a five-year, $99.7 million, and Stoudemire, looking to summarize the transaction, did so simply and succinctly and, by now, rather famously.
“The Knicks,” he declared, “are back.”
Those four words, as much as anything, have endeared Stoudemire to so many Knicks fans in the 34 months since, they’ve served as body armor, of sorts, protecting Stoudemire from what might otherwise have been a tenure in New York City littered with slings and arrows and outrageous fortune.
There was the back injury he suffered in the playoffs two years ago — two nights after turning in what remains his signature game as a Knick, Game 1 against the Celtics in Boston — when he was, essentially, showing off during the pregame layup line. There was his encounter with a fire extinguisher in Miami last year after a Game 2 loss. And there were two separate knee procedures that cost him the meat of this season.
VOTE: WHO SHOULD THE KNICKS KEEP FOR NEXT SEASON?
Through it all, he has been cheered at Madison Square Garden, even in spite of the absences that were the result of his own hand. People remember “The Knicks are back.” They remember the first 3 1/2 months of his time in New York, when he played at an All-Star level, when he fueled the Knicks to an early hot streak and summoned the buzz back to the Garden for the first time in a decade.
New York has been more than fair to Stoudemire, beginning on the first and 15th of every month, when he cashes checks with all those zeroes on them.
But that’s all about to change. You can sense it. You can feel it. Even the most devout Knicks fans — while still willing to acknowledge the importance of Stoudemire’s signing to the team’s perception, and reputation — seem weary, and wary, of his continued presence on this team.
And after a year when it was inarguable the Knicks were better off without him, it is Stoudemire, more than anyone, who casts the longest most looming shadow over what the Knicks need to do going forward, after their season ended in such disappointing fashion Saturday night in Indianapolis.
They were 16-13 with him during the season, 1-3 in the playoffs. They were 38-15 without him during the season, 5-3 during the postseason. Even if you give him the biggest available benefit of the doubt — that even when he was playing, he wasn’t anywhere near 100 percent — those numbers are glaring.
And if you want to continue feeling generous, and hope for a prosperous offseason that might restore Stoudemire’s health and effectiveness, you have to ask yourself this hard question: How many athletic knees, after over a decade of the kind of wear and tear an NBA grind puts on them, ever get better?
And there’s this:
While Stoudemire played the good soldier during his 33-game cameo this season, agreeing to play off the bench, he certainly hinted that those days are rapidly reaching an end.
“We didn’t give it a chance,” Stoudemire said Saturday night. “We need to understand exactly what my style of play is and what I bring to the table. It’s something I have to sit down with Coach Woody and express to him.”
Yes. That’s as potentially troubling as it sounds.
Look, it’s hard to envision a situation where Stoudemire isn’t a part of the Knicks going forward. That $20 million annual price tag makes him virtually untradeable. The Knicks used their post-lockout, one-time-only amnesty on Chauncey Billups last year, which allowed them to sign Tyson Chandler. And while it’s hard to find any positive adjectives to describe Chandler’s performance against Indiana, it’s hard to argue his addition didn’t serve as an important impetus to this 54-win, division championship season.
So if team and player are stuck with each other, they need to find a way to make this work — and if the Knicks’ success is at the center of both, then Stoudemire’s goal ought to be to keep the Sixth Man Award in the family.
Those four words have already steeled him against just about everything for three years. But the warranty won’t last forever.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com