Good news for Knicks fans: after being shut down with knee surgery partway through last season, Carmelo Anthony is ready to go. Knicks head coach Derek Fisher told reporters on Friday that Anthony has been fully medically cleared to participate in training camp, although the team will continue to monitor his activity.
From ESPNNewYork.com’s Ian Begley:“Medically, he will be fine,” coach Derek Fisher said Friday. “I think we will still gauge how much we want to put him under in terms of workload and stress in training camp and in the preseason. But we don’t have to artificially hold him back from working hard. We just have to kind of gauge how it is responding to how hard we plan to work in training camp, and let’s be smart along the way.”
Anthony underwent surgery to repair a damaged patella in his left knee in late February.
The original timetable for Anthony’s return was approximately six months. He has been participating in 5-on-5 scrimmages at the team training facility in recent weeks.
“I just think that he is healthy and feels good about his body and where he sees himself going,” Fisher said.This is good news for the Knicks, for Carmelo, for everybody. New York didn’t make a big splash in free agency, but they added some solid veterans (Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo) and should be much improved from the 17-win disaster of last season.