Amar'e Stoudemire Shaping Up to Become the NBA's Most Intriguing Free Agent

So much of the talk surrounding the sinking New York Knicks concerns the plight of Carmelo Anthony: his health and happiness, comforts and qualms.

And rightly so. Melo is, for good or ill, the foundation on which the team has staked its future and fate.

All the while, a single, simple fact gets lost in the narrative shuffle: The Knicks wouldn’t have even had the luxury of landing Anthony if it weren’t for Amar’e Stoudemire.

Now, thanks to a resurgent season steeped in resilience, Stoudemire stands to be one of next summer’s most intriguing free agents.

Given how onerous Stoudemire’s five-year, $100 million contract wound up being, it’s easy to assume New York will merely bid him adieu. It is, most believe, part and parcel with Phil Jackson’s plan of recasting the Knicks along more sustainable, long-term lines.

Winslow Townson/Associated Press

And that very well may prove the case. As a practical matter, though, it would certainly behoove the Knicks to at least consider bringing Stoudemire back. He might have some fuel left in the tank, and he would imbue Jackson’s rebuild with some semblance of roster flexibility.

"I think he's getting more comfortable with himself, his body, knowing what he can do out there on the basketball court and taking advantage of the mismatches and the situations," Anthony said of Stoudemire, according to NorthJersey.com’s Steve Popper. "He's our go-to post player. [When] we need a bucket at times, we're definitely going to him."

The question, of course, is one of price. With the team’s title window hinged tightly to a post-30 Anthony, every dollar counts. Every signing counts. Every roster spot—from Melo to the pine’s splintered end—counts.

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How much might STAT demand? It’s impossible to say at this point. Although anyone wielding Stoudemire’s signature confidence—“I feel dominant” was how he described his season prospects to reporters—probably isn’t too interested in taking the veteran's minimum.

Might Stoudemire entertain returning to New York at a discount? It’s possible. Given the team’s forthcoming flux and the cap-boosting potential of the league’s new TV deal, something like three years, $18 million might make for a cool compromise.

His zealous resilience may be enough for Knicks fans to forget the misplaced promise of 2010, when STAT arrived Manhattan-side as the supposed savior of a franchise in desperate need of a karmic exorcism. Four years later, the move has been seen more as crippling crutch than cultural cornerstone. Despite the misfire, Stoudemire has been nothing short of a class act—a guy more deserving of sympathy than indignation.

Just don’t expect Jackson to re-break the bank for sentiment's sake. Not even with STAT tallying per-36 numbers largely on career par:

Stretch	Points per 36	Rebounds per 36	TS%	PER
Career	22.2	9.1	.597	22.0
2014-15	18.9	10.5	.605	20.8

Barring a hometown discount to stay with the Knicks, Stoudemire should still have plenty of suitors from which to choose. It’s difficult to imagine the ring-less STAT bypassing a chance at a championship for the sake of more money.

While that predictably shortens the list of potential suitors, compelling fits remain.

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The Toronto Raptors, poised to have close to $22 million in cap space this summer, come immediately to mind. With Amir Johnson and Tyler Hansbrough slated for free agency, the Raptors could be in the market for a first- or second-string 4, depending on how they see Patrick Patterson—who recently signed a long-term extension—fitting into the mix.

The Memphis Grizzlies are another intriguing possibility. While Stoudemire’s defensive shortcomings are well-documented, his offensive versatility and explosiveness could pay potent dividends on a team that may part ways with both Marc Gasol and Kosta Koufos. 

Whatever your big-picture stance on Stoudemire’s NBA legacy, it’s hard to deny the grace and gumption with which he’s authored it. Even after the many knee injuries and myriad more setbacks, STAT has managed to recalibrate his game to be both more measured and more efficient.

Winslow Townson/Associated Press

Credit's due to Hakeem Olajuwon, of course. But Stoudemire’s has been largely a reinvention of his own making—from high-flying falcon feeding off floating treats from Steve Nash to the more-deliberate-but-just-as-quick post wizards we see today. Gone is the unbridled explosiveness, replaced by a reliance on smooth moves and an even smoother touch.

In a recent dispatch for The New Yorker, Thomas Beller underscored what makes Stoudemire such a complex and polarizing paragon of today’s NBA:

"

When the game started, the Knicks unravelled. The only excitement, from the New York fans’ point of view, was seeing Amar’e Stoudemire, once so quick, demonstrate his new skills as a burly inside player. He was much thicker than he used to be—thickness and strength being the one advantage of getting older, with brute force and savvy as some compensation for the loss of agility and lightness. (The clever, earthbound oldsters are a connoisseur’s delight if you get in the right frame of mind, Andre Miller being the most enjoyable.)

"

Such a seamless transition is far from a given. Dominique Wilkins and Vince Carter come to mind. Antonio McDyess, perhaps. For a player so long reliant on otherworldly athleticism, cobbling together an entirely different arsenal without sacrificing one iota of efficiency isn't merely admirable; it's exceedingly rare.

Which is a big part of what makes Stoudemire such a compelling free-agent target: Assuming his health holds and the deal is fair, it’s entirely possible that STAT—at just 31 years old—could cast an even wider net in terms of his overall skill set.

Kathy Kmonicek/Associated Press

That Stoudemire seems to have embraced an amorphous role—starter today, sixth-man extraordinaire tomorrow—shouldn’t be ignored. To the extent that true contenders probably aren’t interested in anything beyond mere cosmetic changes, STAT’s specs ring more enticing still: at the very least, he’s a go-to option capable of single-handedly carrying a second unit.

At most? Chances are we’ve long bid that image goodbye.

History may well view Stoudemire’s New York tenure as a clear-cut case of wrong place, wrong time—and at the wrong price to boot.

But if STAT’s triangle twilight has proven anything, it’s that the gap between overpaid and undervalued isn't always as wide as it seems.