Stoudemire Did More Than Most with His Gifts, but Still Left Us Wanting More
The fond farewells are out there, as always when someone of any significance retires.
It's not even oversaturated with saccharine sentiment in this case. Amar'e Stoudemire did a heck of a lot with his career and was truly a likable and congenial presence in the league. You could even make an argument that he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
But he is also a classic example of someone who could have done more, someone who forces us to wrestle with what might have been.
That may seem unduly critical considering how much better at his job he was than so many who've tried. Yet it's an irresistible debate to slip into whenever we consider the career of a great athlete who also fits the category of "natural talent."
Stoudemire didn't even play basketball until he was 14.
By 20, he was the NBA Rookie of the Year.
In between was an array of high schools, inconsistent playing time and a revolving door's worth of coaches.
Drafted ninth overall in 2002, an onrushing Stoudemire scared NBA veterans more than the experience and size of top pick Yao Ming when both entered the league in the 2002-03 season.
Stoudemire's original explosiveness was like what DeAndre Jordan currently possesses, elevating immediately and easily—except Stoudemire also could handle the ball and quickly developed a diverse set of offensive moves.
He averaged at least 20 points and eight rebounds in seven of his first nine seasons in the NBA. By his second postseason, he was averaging 30 points over 15 games. At the end of the 2015-16 season he ranked seventh in field-goal shooting among all active players and 29th all-time.
Natural as his basketball athleticism was, Stoudemire was at his best when he made the game look effortless…but that often was too good to be true.
What Stoudemire certainly didn't have was a commitment to defend—or even the willingness to make a token effort in many cases. He blocked his share of shots because of his size and athleticism, but he was woefully inconsistent.
Even big men who weren't enamored of defense (Shaquille O'Neal and Pau Gasol come to mind) put forth real effort when at their most physically robust and when it stood to make a championship difference. Indeed, there has to be a drive to want more of yourself and want the best in your field to push you toward more.
But Stoudemire and the Phoenix Suns of Steve Nash and Shawn Marion never quite got there, foiled by bad luck and bad defense.
Because Stoudemire has always thought so much of himself and the Knicks were in such need, the New York spotlight was a great match for a brief time, although the pairing came with red flags sprouting out of his knees. The hope Stoudemire gave beaten-down Knicks fans in 2010 was real.
Alas, so was the truth upon Carmelo Anthony's arrival that the two of them never really made each other better. Neither one gave much attention to the little things, and the results in New York as Stoudemire's knees weakened made clear what those in Phoenix seemed to know when they declined to guarantee the five years the Knicks did.
When something ends in any walk of life, the best approach is to be grateful for what you got out of it. Natural curiosity, though, is to wonder whether anything was left untapped, whether it could have or even should have been better, whether we should have regrets about it.
Proper perspective is difficult to find when Stoudemire offered such crucial what-ifs:
- He was amazing until his knees started giving out. Well, he wasn't responsible in taking care of his body—and he wasn't able to play well through pain—much of his career.
- He was truly a fun and friendly teammate. Yeah, but he wasn't a real leader.
The back-and-forth is real because it's true on both sides.
If Stoudemire could have been as professional as he was toward the end of his career at some point earlier, it might have made all the difference. But it's a pointless exercise to imagine trading for what maturity brings while trading away what age diminishes.
It's easy to be skeptical of someone such as Stoudemire when the guys who've just retired are Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett might be joining them. Those three tried so unbelievably hard that no one will ever wonder what they might have achieved if they'd dug deeper.
Their knees hurt, too—often a lot.
But this is just the kind of trap we fall into when evaluating sports careers.
We have the best of the best as the obvious barometer, so we compare Stoudemire to Garnett…instead of Kwame Brown.
It takes too much work to put into context all that Stoudemire and Anthony have achieved compared to Lenny Cooke, a phenom ranked in the top three among high school seniors back in 2002, according to ESPN.com, and a talent who never even reached the NBA.
That Stoudemire went on to six different NBA All-Star Games with that foundation qualifies as indisputable victory.
He had gone to six different high schools. Stoudemire lost his father early on. His mother was notorious for her run-ins with the law.
Factor in the harsh reality that Stoudemire's older brother, who also had size and skill but limited opportunity, was in jail when Amar'e was drafted—and died at 35—and there's the proper perspective on Amar'e Stoudemire's career.
We're encouraged as sports fans to compare and contrast and rank and ridicule.
We're allowed to imagine what might have been if someone had just dug a little deeper.
We just have to realize that it's true that the most rewarding mentality is being grateful for what we got, especially when someone is gone from our game.
Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.
