Well, Chris Broussard's sources were gracious enough to leak this information during the hurricane, but, as promised, the Knicks have finally made their announcement. Via Howard Beck:

Knicks just announced that Amare Stoudemire needs "left knee debridement" and is out approx. 6-8 weeks.

Debridement, as far as I can tell, is a surgical procedure wherein they'll root around Amar'e's knee with an arthroscope, then take out a bunch of dead shit that isn't supposed to be there (dead human matter, presumably, but one never knows. Could be some jellyfish). I guess this kind of thing-- arthritis, that is-- is to be expected in someone with such a history of knee troubles, but the timing of this procedure is less than ideal what with the basketsports starting in a few days.

Just to recap, this rapidly went from "sore knee, day-to-day" to "exploded knee cyst, a few weeks" to "getting a second opinion, possibly surgery???" to "nope, no biggie, maybe just a few more weeks" to "yup, surgery, two months". The Knicks are pretty good at making injury stories-- which are already the least fun-- that much more torturous. Again, I can only imagine how disheartening this has been for Amar'e after he such a positive, recuperative summer. I hope we'll see you again soon, big friend.