Amare Stoudemire really wants to fit in with the NBA’s elite free agents this summer.
Dwyane Wade recently announced the upcoming summit (wait—don’t call it a summit) of free agents, and the invitation list is short. James, Bosh, Johnson… no Stoudemire. But if you ask him, he’s sure it’s just an oversight.
“I’m friends with LeBron, Dwyane, Chris—all those guys are friends of mine,” he said. “So I’m pretty sure they’ll call me and we’ll talk about a few things.”
Uh-huh. Right. Bad news for you, Amare. It’s not an oversight.
Some team with abundant cap space will offer Amare a max contract, we can all be sure of that. But it’ll only be when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and probably Joe Johnson are already off the board.
Stoudemire played like a max contract player for about the last half of the 2009-2010 season. After January his numbers jumped from 21 points and 8 rebounds a game to 26 and 10—plus a marked difference in his demeanor. He was leading his team by example. He was leading his team, period. His late-season resurgence correlated directly with the team’s, and eyes all around the league took notice.
But that was only half the season, and Amare’s lackluster performance in the playoffs reminded us all who he really is—namely, Lamar Odom in Rec Specs. His 22 points and paltry 6 rebounds per game (6 rebounds! He’s 6’10″!) in the postseason, including a habit of disappearing in big games, undid everything he did in February, March, and April to make us think he was consistent, top-tier, and worthy of a max contract.
That’s why Amare wasn’t invited to the summit (don’t call it a summit!). That’s why he’s going to be a consolation prize for some star-hungry team this summer.
Count ‘em. There are 8 or so teams with enough cap space to sign a max free agent (I count the Heat, Knicks, Nets, Bulls, Wizards, Kings, Clippers, and maybe the Timberwolves), with a couple teams having room to sign two of them.
With eight teams on the hunt, there are only two free agents with the skill set to make any franchise competitive. They’re LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. In the next set you have players who can make a big difference—they’ll be either a star on a decent team or a second banana on a championship team: Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson, and I’d also put Dirk Nowitzki in this group.
After that, the quality of free agents goes down again. Along with Amare you’ve got David Lee and Carlos Boozer—good guys and solid players, but nobody you’d want to financially cripple your franchise to get. Nobody that you’d want to give 5 years, $100 million to—especially when you’re signing them until they’re 32-33 years old (and Amare, on top of that, may not last as long due to his microfracture surgery a few years back).
Perhaps I’m being unfair to Amare here—he’s likely a better deal than Nowitzki, since Dirk is already 31 and doesn’t have as much time left. But I’m looking at Stoudemire realistically: he’s an offensive force, yes, but he’s a liability on defense and on the boards. I’m not convinced that just getting him out of Phoenix will solve either of those problems, either.
It all means there are more teams with max money then there are max players. Each team’s GM is going to go out and not stop short of spending all that money—especially if they’ve got a fan base that has been promised big things from this free agent summer (hello, Knicks fans!). But let’s be honest—Spike Lee isn’t hoping the Knicks come home this summer with Carlos Boozer and, say, Rudy Gay (should he opt out) to show for their double-dose of max money.
That part of what makes this free agent summit (gah!) so important. If LeBron James and Dwyane Wade decide to partner up, they’ll be setting up one lucky franchise for multiple titles. If James and/or Wade partner with any of these other high-level free agents we’ve mentioned, you’re looking at a team that should go deep in the playoffs every year.
And now it’s the end of the season, at least for the Suns, and Amare doesn’t have any deets on the non-summit of free agents—should he bring something, is it a potluck, etc.
Fortunately for Amare, he’s got the ultimate out. If he gets less and less popular in the free agent landscape he can finish out his contract with one more year with the Suns. It’s widely assumed that he’ll opt out to enter free agency, but with the market as competitive as it is, he can choose to stay right where he’s at—and insist that he didn’t want to be invited to the party in the first place.
It wouldn’t be a bad choice. His Phoenix Suns squad won 54 games, snagged the third season in the Wild Wild Western Conference, and stole a couple from the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. Plus, he lives in Phoenix. His family’s in Phoenix. His mom is in Phoenix.
And at least his mom thinks he’s cool.
Hmmm… I don’t know. You state that Stoudemire was “lackluster” in the playoffs, and didn’t play well….that he “disappears” in big games. Can you name any PF that has played exceptional against the Lakers’ defense in the playoffs?…or all season for that matter? I didn’t think so.
The Lakers have a wall of ALL-STARS that guard the paint. It was the same story for Boozer vs. the Lakers. Boozer played awesome games against Denver, but was rendered ineffective in the Laker series. This is no coincidence. The Lakers are STACKED in the paint. Plenty of people are quick to point the finger at a player for not doing their job, but you have to admit the odds are stacked against any PF going up against the Lakers’ Defense.
I’ll agree that Stoudemire is a level below the star impact of Dwayne, or LeBron, but he’s remains in the top tier of athletes in the free agency circus of 2010.
What you’re saying about the Lakers is true, of course, but Amare didn’t struggle more against the Lakers than against the Blazers and Spurs — he did perhaps better against them, and his 42-point explosion came against LA.
The bigger issue than his scoring (he’s pretty reliable to get some buckets; it’s hard to have a bad shooting night on dunks) is everything else in the box score — in the games the Suns lost to the Lakers he had 3, 6, 4, and 4 rebounds. You can’t be 6’10″ and be invisible on the boards if you’re hoping to hang with the likes of LeBron and D-Wade in free agency.
With Bynum, Gasol and Odom in the paint, the odds of Amare getting the a rebound is 1-3. It’d pretty hard to rebound the ball consistently when there are 3 seven footers on the opposing team boxing you out.