in the 2001–02 season McDyess suffered a serious knee injury, a Patellar tendon rupture, that required season-ending surgery. McDyess struggled to play through the injury, re-aggravating it several times and going through additional surgeries over the next few seasons. He was sidelined due to injury for the remainder of the 2001–02 season as well as the entire 2002–03 NBA season. McDyess was traded to the Knicks on June 26, 2002 in exchange for Marcus Camby, Mark Jackson and the draft rights to Nenê, the seventh overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft. McDyess began the 2002–03 season as a highly anticipated addition to the New York Knicks. But on October 8, 2002, with 1 minute 55 seconds left in an exhibition game against Phoenix, McDyess reinjured the knee while dunking a rebound. He would undergo another surgery four days later. In the 2003–04 season, McDyess was traded to the Phoenix Suns after just 18 games with the Knicks in an eight–player deal that brought Stephon Marbury to New York. He remained healthy while in Phoenix for the remainder of the 2003–04 season. That off-season, his knee was declared healthy and the Detroit Pistons signed him for the full mid-level exception. As a member of the Pistons, McDyess was successful in reinventing his game. In his first season with the Pistons, averaged 9.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per 23.3 minutes. He relied mostly on mid–range and turn–around jumpers, but remained an efficient scorer, with a 51.3% FG% (ranked 13th in the NBA), helping the Pistons to an Eastern Conference Championship, though they lost to the Spurs in the NBA Finals. He was a dependable sixth man for Detroit, playing in all 82 games in each of the next two seasons. In 2007–08, following the departure of Chris Webber, McDyess became the Pistons' starting power forward. On November 3, 2008, McDyess was traded to the Denver Nuggets, along with Chauncey Billups and Cheikh Samb, for Allen Iverson. His inclusion in the trade was for salary cap purposes only, and the Nuggets bought out his contract. He waited the league-mandated 30-day period before he could rejoin Detroit, then re-signed with the Pistons on December 9. That postseason, on April 26, 2009, McDyess scored a playoff career-high 26 points, alongside grabbing 10 rebounds, in a deciding Game 4 loss against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The San Antonio Spurs reached an agreement with McDyess on July