Will Amare make any different to the Suns? Is he that important to the Suns? From his coach words, I feel that Amare does make much of a different whether he joins the team or not. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What's you're biggest fear with Amare? D'Antoni: "The other day in practice, we saw him go and really felt like he was going to get it all back. Now, it may take awhile. The biggest thing is, we can win 55-60 games without him. We can win 55-60 games if he can't go at all. The hard thing is, what if he comes back somewhere in between? If he's struggling, we can have some hard patches. That can wreck a team." Link= http://www.azcentral.com/sports/columns/articles/0913bickley0913.html
i have had microfracture surgery and it is the worst damn thing ever. i hope amare can make it back and be consistent.
I'm pretty sure you meant will he make any ''difference'' to the Suns. Hope so, an awful shame and a waste if this is where his career starts falling off.
I am not worried about Amare. He already sets for life with that monster contract. I am just sad that Suns is still a 50-60 win team without Amare while Rockets will be a lottery lock if they miss either T-Mac or Yao.
If Amare comes back to 90-100% healthy, the Suns are a top 4 team. Any less than that, and they will not do as well as last season. They lost Tim Thomas, who was vital to their success, and Nash is a year older. Their offseason pickups are not that great (Banks, Marks, Piatkowski, Jones).
if they dont try to rush him back this year (humm didnt they rush him back last hear ) we will see Amare back. this guy is a beast.
For the long term, Amare is important to the Suns. Nash can't play at MVP caliber level for very much longer. Even if he's not 100%, Amare can still be affective, IMO. A 20/10 Amare is still better than most centers in the NBA...
Even if he was a 100% he would not the Suns are the best they going to be PeRIOD IMO they not a Championship team Rocket River
Amare's never averaged 20/10 in his career and depending on how he comes back he may never do 20/10, he will come close but who knows. 20/10 is casually said about a lot of players but there were only 4 players who did it last year and something like 5-6 the year before
Amare is the new Shawn Kemp. Interestingly, Kemp also had a dominant PG as his side-kick. Kemp was a great player but he can't be your goto guy with 2 minutes left in a close game. The 2-minute test is the ultimate acid test of a true superstar. Jordon had it. Dream had it. blah blah. It was Drexler that made the right pass to Eddie Johnson For Three! If your best player can't simply "turn it on" when the game is on the line, your chances of being a championship team is severly limited. It isn't about just scoring but changing the outcome of a game by any means. That's why I love TMac because he definately has the quality to destroy you (although he's got to demonstrate it more this season). I'm not so sure about Yao. Yao can be relentless for the first 46 minutes of a game but at the end of a game, I don't see Yao as our goto guy if you absolutely need to make a play. In short, having Amare makes Steve Nash's job much easier. But Nash is so good, he can get the most out of any player on his teams.
I trust both yao and tmac with the game on the line. Yao has made game winning shots and he doesnt seem like the one who messes up during the last seconds of a game. Btw Nash is the soul of the suns and last years teamed proved that. Winning that many games without Amare showed how little Amare meant. Amare is a great athlete and is important to his team but there would be a much greater dip in a team if say wade, kobe, lebron, shaq or any other superstar went down. Amare is a great player but not a superstar. Nash was the reason he became an allstar.
I agree with you that Amare is quite similar to Kemp, and Kemp's brilliance was like a flash in the pan. But if the 2-minutes test is the "ultimate acid test" of a true superstar, Shaq is not a true superstar.
You just made my week with that clip! Anyway, I really can't see how you can label Amare Stoudemire as only a "great player" and not a superstar, and yet exclaim that Yao is easily one of the top 10 best players in the league. Now I am only talking about pre-injury Amare, because I'm assuming that that's the player everyone is thinking of here. But here's a guy who was seemingly averaging 40 a night on Tim Duncan in the Conference Finals in only his 3rd season, making the games close when the MVP Steve Nash was looking like the fourth best player on the court, Quentin Richardson was tanking worse than David Wesley, and Shawn Marion had a towel wrapped firmly around his neck, along with a head coach who was clearly outclassed in that series. I have said it many times concerning the Suns, but I truly do believe that Amare will return to form midway through the season, and that the reason the suns were still able to be an outstanding team in 2006 was because of gelling, a truly MVP worthy season from Steve Nash, and the incredible play of Boris Diaw. Right now, the Phoenix Suns' situation almost exactly mirrors the Kings' situation of a few years ago; a novel, aestheically pleasing style, a seemingly infinite window to win a championship and an endless bench, a major injury to a key player; big extensions that make it difficult to keep everyone, average, lackadasical play when the superstar returns too early from surgery, and the eventual rebuilding of the team. Now can the Suns go where the Kings were never able? Since I believe Amare is a superstar, and can return to form, I think they'll pick up every championship that the Rockets don't win in the next 5 years. So yeah, the Suns are still going to be looking for a championship 5 years from now.
I've never seen a player make it all the way back from the micro-fracture surgery, infact I've never seen anyone who wasn't a shell of their former self afterwards. Amare was younger and perhaps able to heal better then any of others so 80% seems like a pretty fair estimate. He'll probaly lose some of his quickness on the pick and roll, but given time with Nash I'm sure they'll find a way compensate. The injury won't effect rebounding as much since good rebounding is more about position then leaping ability, but it will affect his ability to get the ball back up quickly. Running the floor on fastbreaks could become a bit of a struggle. I hope that I don't see Amare limping around the way Webber and Kidd seem to now. If he gets the bulk of his mobility back I'm sure he can develop a game to compensate for any explosiveness that he has lost, it might force him to be more of a halfcourt player, but the Suns need to improve most in the halfcourt anyway.The injury could force him to develop the consistant post game he has lacked up until now.
The guy is pretty young, so he can still compensate for whatever he's lost. At worst, he'll be in a Brad Miller situation. Great and productive in the regular season. Flame out from injuries when it matters.
Good point ...only because of free throws. But if your inside of two minutes, you can still get the ball to Shaq and he'll make things happen ...as long as he doesn't get fouled. Big if, huh? But every moment Shaq is in the game, he alters what is happening. And if there is 40 seconds left in the game and Shaq has the ball on the block, the opposing team is crapping in their pants. I wouldn't call Kemp a flash in the pan ...but Kemp was never a top tier player. Amare has some real work to do to reach that status. He was well on his way but he hadn't made it yet. Plus I beleive if you take Nash away, Amare is an above average guy but not a guy that you really WANT to build your team around. Put it this way, I'd MUCH rather build around Yao than Amare.
