USA - More knee surgery for Stoudemire

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Phoenix Suns forward Amaré Stoudemire will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery on Tuesday and is expected to be sidelined for two to three weeks.

The minor operation is to remove a loose particle in the 24-year-old all star's right knee, not the left one, which required major surgery two years ago that kept him out for almost the entire 2005-06 season.

Amare Stoudemire, right, with teammate Steve Nash, recovered from microfracture surgery to play in all 82 of the Suns' regular-season games last year.
(L.M. Otero/Associated Press) "It's a procedure that [Suns guard] Raja [Bell] just went through just to clean it up," Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni said. "We have time to do it so we thought let's go ahead and get it done."

Team orthopedic surgeon Thomas Carter will perform the operation, the Suns said in a release issued Monday night.

Stoudemire averaged 20.4 points and 9.6 rebounds while shooting 57.5 per cent from the floor last season. Perhaps even more encouraging for the Suns, the six-foot-10 forward played in all 82 regular-season NBA games only a year after missing all but three contests as he recovered from microfracture surgery.

That procedure, a somewhat new one designed to restore damaged knee cartilage, involves making tiny breaks in the adjacent bones in order to stimulate the flow of cartilage-producing blood and bone marrow.

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After sitting out virutally all of 2005-06, Stoudemire helped the Suns reach the second round of last season's playoffs, where they fell in six games to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs.

In the off-season, Stoudemire played on the U.S. team that captured the FIBA Americas championship in Las Vegas.