Tempered hope surrounds Amaré
Paul Coro
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 4, 2006 12:00 AM
TREVISO, Italy - Amaré Stoudemire was smiling - and playing - again Tuesday.
After he scored 13 points in about 25 minutes of play in an intrasquad scrimmage, one of the Italian fans leaning over the Palaverde arena's 10-foot high railing yelled out, "You all right now?"
Stoudemire put up one of his frying pan-sized hands and separated his forefinger and thumb to show a 2-inch gap to the fan.
"Yeah, close," Stoudemire said.
He could say that Tuesday night, when there was a glimmer of the old "Stat" once again. He would have had no business saying it Monday, when he reduced his practice participation to sideline exercises because his right knee felt stiff. And there still is good cause for pause until Stoudemire puts a few dozen more of these type of days together consecutively.
"It was great for me to get out there and play because I definitely got that understanding that I can play through it and it will get better," Stoudemire said.
Stoudemire missed two early jumpers but hit five of his last six shots, including a fadeaway baseline jumper, a lob slam dunk, a follow, another baseline jumper and a reverse jam. Still, his transition speed was like a treadmill jog at times.
"We hope he can string them together," said Suns coach Mike D'Antoni, clearly at a point where he is reserving optimism.
After the Tuesday morning practice, D'Antoni was as blunt as any Suns staffer has been publicly over Stoudemire's erratic participation.
"Somehow, he's just got to get through the stiffness or the soreness or whatever," D'Antoni said. "I just don't know what it is. He's going to have to do it. You know what? It might be two or three months. He's not going to hold us back. We're going on. Whenever he's ready, he's ready.
"Right now, we can't figure him in because we don't know. If he makes some progress, we'll be able to put him in. Right now, we've just got to figure out how we go forward in this situation."
Stoudemire compared the stiff feeling in his right knee to the stiffness he experienced in his left knee earlier in the summer. He said he is trying to "push through the soreness."
"I had a few exciting plays," Stoudemire said. "It's not quite there yet. I want to have exciting plays throughout the whole game but there is room to improve. All I've got to do is stay focused and stay positive and try to weave through the soreness."
The Suns continue to go with a starting five of Steve Nash, Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, Boris Diaw and Kurt Thomas in the first week of the training camp. Everyone but Bell scored in a 9-0 run that helped that crew take command Tuesday in the first of three 10-minute contests.
"He's definitely progressing," Marion said of Stoudemire. "We've all got his back and we definitely support him so he can ease back into it."
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