NEW YORK -- Antonio McDyess walked gingerly through the chic Manhattan restaurant, like a waiter balancing a tray of food. He sat with his left leg extended, not quite ready to test it yet.

McDyess remains in rehab after breaking his kneecap in a preseason game and fracturing the whole year for the New York Knicks.

It is the second straight lost season for McDyess, who was limited to just 10 games with the Denver Nuggets a year ago with an injury to the same knee. He was sent to New York in a draft night trade that the Knicks hoped would begin their reconstruction from a lottery team.

He never got that chance, his season abruptly halted after just three preseason games.

"It's definitely improved,'' McDyess said of the knee. "I was out of the cast two weeks after the surgery. I'm trying to take it slowly. I'm still rehabbing.''

So, instead of posting up some big guy and giving the Knicks a presence in the paint, McDyess stretches his leg, works with weights, tries to restore the strength and mobility. "I bend my knee, I bend my leg,'' he said. "It's a lot of manual work.''

And meanwhile, the Knicks have struggled through a difficult 6-13 start, buried near the bottom of the NBA's Atlantic Division.

"I'm watching the games,'' he said. "You always want to play. If I'm playing, I could help. Just watching is totally different.''

McDyess was participating in the NBA's "Read To Achieve'' program on Wednesday and visited with fifth graders from a Brooklyn's Beginning with Children school, one of eight schools around the city identified as the "Knicks Reading Zones.''

He joined rap singer Jay Z and restaurateur Bobby Flay reading a Christmas book with the kids and seemed to have fun interacting with them. But there was hurt in his eyes.

"No question, this is the toughest thing I've been through,'' he said of the injury. "I want to get well. I want to put this behind me and move on.''

McDyess, who averaged 17.7 points and 13.0 rebounds in three preseason games, was injured with less than two minutes left in a game against Phoenix. He came down after a dunk clutching his left knee and limped off the court.

"I knew I was hurt,'' he said.

Doctors said this injury and the one to his patella tendon that cost him almost all of last season were unrelated. They expected McDyess to be in a cast for as long as six weeks but he beat that estimate substantially and hopes that was a good omen.

"I'm not a doctor,'' he said. "The knee is strong and the ligament is strong. I feel that I'm coming back. The recovery depends on how a person heals. Everybody has a different bone structure.''