GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- The question was whether the New York Knicks can trade Amare Stoudemire in the offseason, and the conversation with a high-ranking executive of a playoff team started in a predictable place.

"No," he said Wednesday. "No way."

The executive, a good one, cited the standard reasons why Stoudemire is an immovable summertime part. His injury history. The size of his contract. The lack of insurance on his knees. The diminished athleticism and presence around the rim.

"You'd be taking a tremendous risk with Amare," the executive said, "and the feeling around the league is he's living on borrowed time with his knees. I just don't think anyone would take him."

Only then was it repeated that Stoudemire, $100 million man, isn't owed $100 million over five years anymore, but $64.4 million over three. It was mentioned that Stoudemire is only 29, and that Gilbert Arenas and Rashard Lewis were traded for each other, meaning it only requires one sucker, maybe two, to move any player and make any deal.

It was stated that the teams scheduled to be way under the salary cap -- the lottery likes of New Orleans, Cleveland, Sacramento, Portland, and Brooklyn, and the winning likes of Boston and Indiana -- might use their flexibility to gamble that Stoudemire will stay relatively healthy and give them some needed starpower and size.

Fifteen minutes into the conversation, the executive was sold.

"Now that we're talking through it," he said, "yes, I think Amare can be traded. If Gilbert Arenas can get traded, anyone can get traded. Every year there's a guy you think can't get moved, or a free agent asking for a figure you think he'll never get, and it always happens because it only takes one team."

It's time to send Amare Stoudemire on his way. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

So there it is: The Knicks need to find that team for Stoudemire.

They need to trade Stoudemire, a guy who fit with the Mike D'Antoni Knicks of Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler and Raymond Felton, a guy who no longer fits with the Mike Woodson Knicks of Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler.

At the Knicks' practice facility Wednesday, Stoudemire addressed his decision to use a Game 2 loss to the Miami Heat as an excuse to shatter the glass protecting an AmericanAirlines Arena fire extinguisher, leaving his left hand looking like something half-eaten in a zombie film.

His hand heavily bandaged, Stoudemire appeared before the news media wearing a shirt that read, "Marked Man," the first sign that he still didn't get it. The powerless forward did too much explaining and rationalizing, not nearly enough apologizing.

Stoudemire said that he just took a careless swipe at the wall, that he "just wanted to make some noise." He said the fire extinguisher case was "85 percent metal and a 2 percent strip of glass," leaving an unlucky and unexplained 13 percent and an unlucky and unwitting victim to bleed all over the place.

Stoudemire said the fans have "the wrong perception of what happened," and that he didn't mistake the glass case for a punching bag. If Stoudemire talked long enough, he surely would've explained he was reaching down to pick up a fallen child when he injured his hand.

"It's disappointing to my teammates," he said. "I really didn't want to let them down any."