After the Miami Heat won the first of potentially many championships last season and the Boston Celtics proved they can still be an NBA title contender, the New York Knicks were put under the microscope during the off-season.

Unfortunately, New York failed to live up to expectations after letting Jeremy Lin sign with the Houston Rockets and only brining in aged veterans. The signing of Jason Kidd and trade to acquire Raymond Felton might be moves in the right direction in the aftermath of losing Lin, but only time will tell if those moves pan out to help rather than help the storied NBA franchise.

As if the off-season wasn’t enough of a disaster, the Knicks have stumbled right out of the gate with forward Amar’e Stoudemire out at least six weeks with a right knee injury. New York knew the season would start without Stoudemire in the lineup, but it was uncertain how long the forward would miss until now.

With Stoudemire out the first month and half of the regular season, the Knicks will likely try to mix things up at the power forward position with Carmelo Anthony, Kurt Thomas and newcomer Rasheed Wallace.

The extent of Stoudemire’s knee injury will keep him out as much as eight weeks and that may put the Knicks in a considerable hole unless this team can flourish with Wallace stepping up or Melo becoming a force to be reckoned with at the four spot.

Either way, the Knicks may struggle to start the season with the team extremely thin at power forward. Wallace and Thomas may turn out to be useful with Stoudemire on the shelf, but it will be risky from here on out with aging veterans the only option outside of their superstar playing out of position.

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