Injured Knee Puts Manning Out for Season : Pro basketball: A similar mishap to the other leg cost Sun forward much of his rookie season with the Clippers.

Former Clipper forward Danny Manning, who gambled by turning down several lucrative multiyear, multimillion dollar offers to sign a $1 million, one-year contract with the Phoenix Suns last summer, will sit out the rest of the season after tearing a ligament in his left knee during practice Monday.

Manning, whose rookie season was cut short when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee on Jan. 14, 1989, in a game at Milwaukee, tore the same ligament, the primary stabilizing ligament in the knee, in his left knee at the America West Arena in Phoenix.

Ron Grinker, Manning’s agent, said the Suns made no guarantee that they would re-sign Manning when he signed his original contract, and Manning is not known to have insured himself against a career-ending injury.

“The rules say you can’t make a guarantee,” said Grinker, who added that he believes the Suns will compensate Manning.

“I would assume they feel Danny is an All-Star,” Grinker said. “He’s having a spectacular year and I assume that (Phoenix President) Jerry Colangelo is the same person that I thought he was. I have no reason to think that he wouldn’t be professional.”

Colangelo said Manning will be taken care of.

“We plan for Danny to be with the team next year,” Colangelo said.

“He came here at great sacrifice. He came here because he felt this is where he wanted to be, an opportunity to play with a team that would contend for a championship. Then the bad news today. My response to all of that is very simple: That sacrifice will not be forgotten.”

Manning was out of action for 11 months after tearing up his right knee when he landed wrong after making a fast-break layup in that ’89 game against Milwaukee.

After missing 66 games, he began playing again on Nov. 29, 1989, again against Milwaukee. After saying that rehabilitating the knee injury was one of the toughest challenges he has faced, Manning had a panther tattooed on his right ankle in 1993 to remind himself of what he had endured.

Manning’s latest injury occurred when he collided with teammate Joe Kleine during a closed workout.

“After he hit the floor he said, ‘Oh, man, I blew out my knee,’ ” Sun star Charles Barkley told reporters.

Colangelo said an MRI revealed a complete tear of the ligament. Rehabilitation can take from six months to a year.

“This is a real bad break for Danny because of the courageous way he came back from his first knee injury,” Colangelo said. “Danny is taking this as well as he can.”

Steve Lombardo, the surgeon who repaired Manning’s right knee, and Suns’ team doctor Richard Emerson are expected operate on Manning’s left knee in about two weeks, after the swelling goes down.

“It certainly gives us a big hole to fill,” Sun Coach Paul Westphal said. “You really can’t replace a guy like that, but we’ll do the best we can.”

A starter for the first six seasons of his NBA career, Manning has been used primarily as a reserve this season to give the Suns a lift.

He has started 19 of 46 games this season, including the last four in a row, when he averaged 23 points and 8.8 rebounds. Overall, he averaged 17.9 points, six rebounds and 3.3 assists.

Grinker is confident Manning, who built a private gym next to his house and brought former Clipper conditioning coach Carl Horne to Phoenix as his personal trainer, will recover from the injury.

“It will be a great test for Danny because he’ll be the first player in professional basketball history, to my knowledge, to have the dreadful opportunity to play with two ACLs (anterior cruciate ligament tear) instead of just one,” Grinker said.

* Allan Malamud is on vacation.