New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony claims surgery to his right keen won't be necessary at the end of the season after admitting that the Knicks' medical staff has yet to identify the source to his discomfort.
"Nobody can really give me an exact answer on it," Anthony said early Monday. "There's no pain, no ligament damage or anything like that. There's just some fluid in the back of the knee that's preventing me from hyper-extending my knee sometimes."
Anthony, who was expecting to return to the lineup after being sidelined for three games, then made a sobering admission by stating: "I don't think I'll ever be 100 percent."
According to the New York Daily News, when asked if the pain he is feeling is just a normal wear and tear, Anthony told reporters: "We've been trying to figure it out, myself, the team the doctors. It could have been something that stemmed from back in Christmas when I hurt my knee in L.A. And over the time it came back and I probably agitated something like that. From that time I didn't feel anything. It was when we played Toronto right before All-Star break when I started feeling it."
Anthony says the MRI scan of his knee failed to show any structural damage like a torn meniscus.
Anthony also addressed how the absence of teammate Amar'e Stoudemire, who will need surgery on his right knee, will affect the team's playoff chances.
"We will miss him," Anthony said. "We need him. He's a big part of what we had going on. He worked his way back to being the Amar'e that everybody knows, especially in the limited minutes he was getting coming off the bench, accepting the role. He was giving us a lot of production coming off the bench so that's something we're going to miss."
