Other than delivering the bad news nobody wanted to hear — that All-Star forward Amaré Stoudemire required a microfracture procedure on his left knee — team physician Dr. Tom Carter said every other aspect of Tuesday’s surgery, which will sideline Stoudemire a minimum of four months, was letter perfect.

And given Stoudemire’s youth, the location of the centimeter-wide lesion and that the rest of the knee was pristine, Carter has every confidence that the 22-year-old will be able to resume his career unobstructed and in time for the end of the season. "It’s a best-case scenario when you go in there and there’s nothing else wrong with the knee,’’ said Carter, who said the lesion on the inside of Stoudemire’s knee measured 8 millimeters by 1 centimeter.

Carter compared the lesion to "a pothole," which would get bigger, cause more pain and become harder to treat as time passed.

"When you treat athletes, you are aggressively conservative,’’ he said. "Rather than waiting and be retroactive, we wanted to be proactive to keep anything from coming up later down the line.’’

So while the Suns will have to go without Stoudemire until the Feb. 17-21 All-Star break, Carter doesn’t foresee any of the problems that plagued players like Penny Hardaway after microfracture procedures on knees that were already surgically repaired and beginning to break down.

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Carter used a surgical awl to poke five shallow holes around the lesion, 3 millimeters apart, to facilitate the bleeding that will harden and form the "fibrocartilage’’ that will fill in the tiny hole.

"Not all defects are the same; it’s like comparing apples and oranges,’’ he said. "You try to compare it to (surgeries of athletes) and some of those results have been abysmal. But you’re talking about patients that have arthritic knees (like Hardaway), or kissing lesions (bare bone-onbone involving femur and tibia) and other things. Those are degenerative lesions compared to this, which is an isolated lesion where the rest of the knee is normal.’’

Carter said Stoudemire complained of knee pain during the summer, but when asked if it really bothered him, he would say ""No, it’s OK.’’ Even as recently as Oct. 3, almost two weeks after an MRI exam revealed the lesion — Stoudemire said he felt great when the Suns took their physicals before heading to Tucson for training camp.

"But when he started bumping up his activities (at camp), that’s when we started to see more symptoms and swelling that we get concerned about,’’ Carter said. "We never ignore pain, but when you see swelling it changes the game.’’

Now recuperating at home, Stoudemire is already spending six to eight hours a day on a continuous passive motion machine, which moves the knee conservatively (zero to 30 degrees) to increase blood flow. He will spend six weeks on crutches, the first four weeks without any weightbearing activity, before rehab can begin with water exercises and a non-resistance exercise bike.

Suns trainer Aaron Nelson said the rehab will go at Stoudemire’s pace, and the player’s reputation as a tireless worker will have to be reined in during the rehab process.

"You can’t let the athlete push himself too much,’’ Nelson said. "Any signs of swelling or pain and we’ll back him off. Amaré would be down here all the time unless we watch him, but he knows it’s important he do what we tell him — no more and no less.’’

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