Agent: Amar'e Stoudemire may be headed for a stricter minutes limit

Amar'e Stoudemire had his minutes capped for pretty much all of the 33 games he played last season, playoffs included. After his first knee debridement surgery, Amar'e wasn't supposed to play more than 30 minutes a night, and he didn't for the most part. In a few postseason games after the second knee debridement surgery, he was capped to 15 or 20, but never played more than 12.

Next season, we'll probably see more of the same, via Marc Berman of the Post:

the Knicks have had renewed discussions on a stricter minutes restriction next season for Amar’e Stoudemire, according to his agent, Happy Walters.

The idea of a 20-minute nightly maximum with a prohibition on playing both ends of back-to-backs has been one of the ideas that has been discussed.

"I don’t think anything has been decided,’’ Walters told The Post yesterday. "The doctors are still talking about that. But he’s not going to play a ton of minutes.’’

Note that that's Amar'e's agent, not some unnamed source. If you were one of those pining for the Knicks to trade Amar'e this summer, you can probably put those dreams away for good now.

Amar'e surely won't enjoy a limit on his playing time, but it seems practical given how the last two years went. And as Berman points out, the addition of Andrea Bargnani could mitigate those lost frontcourt minutes, if perhaps the lost defensive liabilities as well (click through, by the way, for a couple interesting Bargnani notes).

It's hard to get a feel for New York's 2013-2014 frontcourt rotation at this point. They at least have another little piece or two to add, and at most are planning some unforeseen seismic move. No matter the roster, it remains to be seen how faithful Mike Woodson is to last year's lineups with Carmelo Anthony at the four. For all their other holes, the Knicks are now weirdly deep and deeply weird at the power forward spot.