Azubuike: 'Closer than I've ever been'
3:56 PM By Alan Hahn
Kelenna Azubuike is always accomodating when it comes to granting interviews, but at this point he's getting tired of the same question.
"Very tired," he corrected.
After watching him in the practice scrimmage today, however, I don't think you need to ask him how he and his surgically-repaired knee feels. It's visually evident that it's improved dramatically since the start of the season. He's still not impressively explosive or noticably athletic, but he doesn't stand out in a bad way, either.
"I feel closer than I've ever been," Azubuike said as he walked off the court.
What's more important is Mike D'Antoni, this time, agrees.
"He's getting closer, that's for sure," D'Antoni said. "I didn't think he'd even get this close. We'll keep evaluating him and we'll see after the all-star break how he's doing and see if there's some opportunities to get him on the floor."
Azubuike's strengths, pre-injury, were explosive athleticism, defense and a three-point touch. The athleticism isn't quite there, though he's not running with a gimp in his gait like we saw in November. He moves well within a game and doesn't get easily beat. He can still knock down the three-ball.
It's been well over a year since he's played in an NBA game, so no one expects Azubuike to step in and make a major difference. But for someone who has spent a year rehabilitating a very troublesome injury -- ruptured patella tendon -- he is finally, at least, making notable progress.
He feels if he got into a game, he can do "enough to keep up."
"I've been keeping up pretty good in practice and playing as hard as I can and everything," he said. "I'm pretty confident in the knee. I'm axious to get out there."
That', of course, is the hard part when it comes to D'Antoni's rotation. Azubuike would have to do show more than Bill Walker to get those minutes. But it would be better for Azubuike to get some garbage time minutes first, rather than just dive right into a live game, especially in a playoff push. But if he can continue to improve, Azubuike could be an extremely valuable player come April.
"Right now to break into any rhythm I think is kind of hard," D'Antoni said, "but it would be great to get him out there every once in a while."
He may not have a choice. If the Knicks do pull off the Carmelo Anthony trade and give up a few players in the rotation, perhaps even rookie Landry Fields, Azubuike, a shooting guard, may suddenly become an important piece of the rotation. Another possibility is that Azubuike, who has an expiring contract with 80 percent of his salary covered by insurance as a result of missing over 41 games with the injury, is included in a trade.
"You never know, it's tough to think about that and try to figure out what's going to happen," he said. "You never know. I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing and get myself as ready as I can."
2/15/2011 6:42 PM