Amare Stoudemire Undergoes Eye Surgery, Out for Regular Season

Amare Stoudemire was poked in the eye during the first quarter of the Suns' big win over the Clippers in Los Angeles. He left the game briefly, but came back and played 36 minutes wile finishing with 42 points and 11 rebounds.

Stoudemire must be one tough dude. Because the injury to his eye turned out to be a partially detached retina, one which required him to undergo surgery this morning, and is expected to keep him out for the rest of the regular season.

As you may recall, Stoudemire injured the same eye during training camp, when an errant finger from Boris Diaw caught him and resulted in a partially torn iris. At the time, Amare planned to wear goggles to protect himself from these types of injuries in the future, but apparently they bothered him too much to continue with it. Even though his season high of 49 points came back in November against the Pacers -- with the goggles on.

This is an extremely disappointing development for the Suns, who currently sit one game out of the playoff race behind the recently red-hot Utah Jazz. Amare is expected to be out for eight weeks, which is (to the day) when the regiular season ends for Phoenix. And without STAT in the lineup, the team's post-season prospects just don't appear to be all that promising.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-20-2009 @ 2:18PM

Dustin Crowe said...

regular* without amare, the suns are done

2-20-2009 @ 4:15PM

Giles said...

For the folks who wanted to believe the brief scuffle in this same game was a racial incident, blacks attacking whites, who claimed "brothers" never hurt/fight brothers. Randy Dandy Zack Randolph didn`t put Louis Amundson out for the season with eye surgery. Amare is the one eye, whom someone potentially could have maimed for life. He was a black target, not a white target. I blamed Randolph for his misconduct, but said I felt the incident was not racially motivated. They haven`t named who injured Amare, but I doubt this incident was racial motivated either. Peaceful coexistence is not just a dream, it can become a reality, but especially in competive situations, it is not always easily achieved. Whether Amere is able to come back and possibly win an nba championship this year, if, as expect, he may miss no playoff games is secondary to hoping he keeps full vision in that damaged eye, which I assume is still very much in doubt at the moment. The Suns will need someone to step up a wing forward, Shaq will compete like the all star he is at center, Hill, Barnes, Amundson, and Lopez will step up at power forward, but in the playoffs, Richardson and Tucker will need to play the best defense of their careers if they match against Kobe Bryant at guard, which will prevent them, presumably, from swinging up to forward. I wish whomever poked him a proper investigation, and Amare a speedy and complete recovery. And I hope the Suns leave it to the commissioner to retaliate for the injury.