kip3f wrote:The special amnesty from the last CBA contract was used on Billups, right?

Yes, but people are making too big a deal about it. We would not use it on Stat anyway, because we STILL HAVE TO PAY him his money - it just doesn't count against the cap. Maybe we would use it with only two years left, but he is producing, or was, and this had nothing to do with his knees. A bulging disc is definitely healable.

Right now we need another PF as Jeffries and Stat are out. How about that other Sean Williams cat? Crazy yes, but him and Chandler would be nice on defense. Guess we need some offense though.

If fluid is leaking its a problem. Lets not be naive, he had this happen last year and the team was guarding his condition.

Back problems as those know can be depressing and he is dealing with his brothers death which will be with him for some time.

10 years ago I had the occurrence of two ruptured discs in my neck. A residual injury from when I broke my neck in college PLAYING BASKETBALL!

I have a great neurosurgeon (not an orthopedist. Those guys ALWAYS want to operate!) who suggested we wait. I was borderline with no clear evidence either way as to operate or not. I choose to wait, but fully aware I could need surgery. It worked.

Amare no doubt will have the best care and options at his finger tips. We are not talking about just any person, we are talking about a 20 million dollar a year employee whose explosive athletic ability is his key asset. Since the true nature of his condition has been not shared with the public, or season ticket holders I doubt we get insight to the real issues.

As others alluded, it takes a long time for the material to dissipate and I suspect last year everything was done non-surgical. A bulge is not big deal and if we all took MRI's we might find many of us have them. Most of them are not problematic. Its when it becomes structurally unstable. My guess is surgery to remove the material but I doubt they fuse as that might inhibit performance.

If he has surgery Im sure it will be conservative but it might not be the cure. The guy seems to recover fast and he is still young. I going to guess he gets shut down and will have a procedure. This is not an exact science here. Don't look to "blame" if it does not pan out in the fans favor. There is now way to know how the body responds. All of these situations are different.

We should be able to get by since the Chandler is a-ok as PNR man and the hierarchy on offense should be pretty clear.

MSG3 wrote:Some of the ESPN NY guys are tweeting that Amar'e could be back in 2 weeks if he opts not to have surgery yet. If he has surgery he'll be out the rest of the season and post season. It sounds like no matter what he should probably have surgery this summer to correct it, even if he has to miss the start of next season.

If he rests for 2 weeks and has no risk of making it worse, I think he'll play. If there's any risk of making it worse he should just have the surgery now I think.

Exactly- there's no point in taking any risk that he may worsen it. Lets be honest, if he does come back for the playoffs, he's going to be playing at a low level- either like he did in the playoffs last year, or like he played this season before he got things going in the past few weeks. Does that STAT really benefit the team? I wish they'd just do what's best for him long term, instead of jeopardizing that just to rush him back this year (the standard Knick policy!)