How can you blame Amare for this? Sure, part of it is his fault. He should've been a little more responsible and mature in knowing that he wasn't ready to come back. However, he is just a young guy who loves playing basketball and couldn't wait to get back on the court. He had that "itch." And it is the doctors' and trainers' jobs to understand this and to say that, "although your left knee is structurally sound, we strongly recommend against your coming back for risk of new injury." The blame has to go all around, and I know that the final decision was up to Amare, but understand that the power of desire is strong. If the doctors are saying, "You look okay," and you really want to get out and play, you feel like you can just fight through some of the odd pains and play, even though you may know in your heart that you're not completely healthy.
In response to your, "And how do you know that?" question, let me give you this analogy:
Your mommy wakes you and Snuggles (your stuffed animal that is frayed and ripped from all these years, but that you won't give up cause you "wuv" him so much) up in the morning. You go downstairs, and, alas, she has a bowl of Lucky Charmes and 2% milk for you already set out on the table, with the little spoon that you like. You might think to yourself, "And how did you know that" I wanted Lucky Charmes? It is possible that last night, you saw a Frosted Flakes commercial and have since become so enamored with that big, burly Tony the Tiger, and that you no longer like Lucky Charmes. But, considering that you have, so many times in the past, asked mommy for lucky charmes, she just figured that this morning would be similar.
Here is how this relates to the current Amare situation. I don't KNOW that Amare is going to rest for the summer and try to come back healthy for the start of training camp. He might be ready before then, and he might feel confident enough to participate in summer activities with the U.S. team. But, judging from the way this rehab has gone so far, and from the way I've seen other players recover from similar surgeries, I can predict with a fair amount of confidence that the situation is going to play out as I have stipulated. In the past few weeks, you have had a pretty large problem with me trying to make predictions about Amare's future, because it seems as though you don't understand what a "prediction" or a "forecast" is. All I am doing is taking previous, sometimes unrelated statistics and applying them to Amare's situation in an effort to predict the way that future events will play out.
It is kind of like, about a week ago, right after Amare decided to shut it down (at least for a little while), and you said, in no unsure words, "Amare will be back this season." I am guessing that you didn't just pull this prediction out of nowhere; you probably thought about some past observations and applied them to Amare, in a way that made you confident enough to declare that Amare would be back. Obviously, this recent news proves you wrong, but it doesn't mean that your attempt wasn't justified. It simply means that you aren't yet ready to be making such bold statements, and that you should stick to your tried and true, "I don't know what's going on, cause I'm not the doctor" approach.
