In February 2012 I saw Amare Stoudemire up close and personal in Madison Square Garden, when the Knicks took on the Bulls in a nationally televised Thursday night blockbuster.
Stoudemire was on fire that night, dropping 34 and 11 on Chicago’s vaunted defensive frontcourt of Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson.
His full arsenal was on display; the ferocious, purposeful rolling to the rim, the impossible agility for a big man of his stature, the underrated touch around the rim and from the mid-range.
I saw everything that made Stoudemire a six-time All-Star, and an All-NBA First Team player.
That performance was only two years ago. It feels like a decade.
That night against Chicago is the last time Stoudemire scored 30 points in an NBA game. A chronic knee injury cost Stoudemire most of 2012-2013 and entering the 2013-14 season his career as a meaningful NBA player seemed over. Although his troublesome knees kept him on a minutes restriction for much of last season, Stoudemire actually reemerged as a functional offensive threat for the Knicks.
Regardless, ‘functionality’ isn’t what the Knicks paid Stoudemire 100 million dollars for, and thanks to an injury history so extensive that it borders on comical, and the failure to live up to his gaudy contract, Stoudemire has become a punchline.
Stoudemire epitomises an unfortunate narrative that has engulfed professional sport in recent times. With salary caps, collective bargaining agreements and player contracts becoming topics where everyone with a laptop is an expert, our perception of athletes is now inextricably linked to how much money they make.
Danny Green is considered a fantastic role player, a diamond in the rough, because he only makes 4 million dollars a year, while Joe Johnson, an infinitely superior player, is a subject of ridicule because he makes 23 million.
Like Johnson, Stoudemire has become defined by his contract. I don’t know if many NBA fans could tell you that Stoudemire shot 56 per cent from the floor last season, but I’m sure they could tell you that he made over 20 million dollars, and they’d do it with a smirk on their face.
Ultimately, Stoudemire bares no culpability for the negative perception of him. He’s not Andrew Bynum, a locker-room cancer who seemingly just picks up his cheques. It’s not his fault that the Knicks, one of the most incompetent franchises in professional sports, were dumb enough to give a five-year, 100 million dollar uninsured contract to someone with a history of knee problems.
Stoudemire actually has an incredible story, which has been lost in the fray of knee debridement, contract insurance and amnesty clauses.
Like many NBA players, Stoudemire grew up in virtual poverty. His father died of a heart attack when he was 12 and his mother was an apple-picker who spent time in and out of prison for theft. When his mother was in prison, Stoudemire would sleep in the corner of a trailer. Stoudemire’s brother Hazell spent much of his life incarcerated for drug abuse before being killed in a car crash in 2012.
Today, Stoudemire has a wife and four kids. He is financially stable, to say the least. When I see Stoudemire I don’t see a cap figure, a contract or an injury history, I see the right side of the American Dream; someone who literally rose up from nothing. I see one of the most dynamic and formidable athletes of all time, a physical force who was born to make rims weep. I see a player that averaged 37 and 10 on 55 per cent shooting in the 2005 playoffs against Tim Duncan, and formed arguably the most unstoppable two-man pick-and-roll game in NBA history with Steve Nash.
As a Knicks fan, I feel no ill-will towards Amare Stoudemire. In fact, I’m grateful. Stoudemire was laughed at when he opened his introductory press conference after New York signed him by boldly stating “the Knicks are back”. In his first year as a Knick he made the critics eat crow, playing at an MVP level for much of the season and putting up 25 and 8 on 50 per cent shooting.
People associate this Knicks era (whatever that means) with Carmelo Anthony, but it has to be remembered that it was Stoudemire’s team first. He’s the one who brought the Knicks back to relevance. He shouldered the responsibility of being the biggest star of the most popular sport in the world’s biggest city. That was a pressure that crippled the likes of Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis, but it galvanised Stoudemire.
As we enter his 13th season in the NBA, Amare Stoudemire might not stand quite as tall and talented as he once did, but he’s still here, and he’s still standing.
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