I can careless what fans think about who's the best young center in the NBA, but what irritates me the most is when "NBA Experts" believe that Amare Stoudamire is a better center than Yao. Stoudamire is a great and unbelievable athlete and has improved his jumpshooting, I'll give him that. However, if anybody saw the game between the Jazz and the Suns last week, where Amare had only Barbosa with him, he looked lost on offense. He has no real offensive moves. Not even a little 5 ft jump hook, or a power post move. His ONLY move is a dunk, which he gets 95% of those because of Nash and Barbosa's penetration. His rebounding numbers are somewhat decieving, because there are many long rebounds with the Suns because of the amount of 3's they take. He can be out of postion and have a rebound fall into his hands, where as Howard, Yao, and Kaman have to fight for rebounds in the bruising paint. Yao, Kaman, and Howard are all better than Amare, simply because they can create for themselves. Yao has been able to do that his entire career and has just gotten better at it every season. Kaman, has really stepped up his game, and impressed and surprised many people around the NBA. Howard used to be what Amare is right now, except with rebounding and defense. But these days, you see a good variety of post moves from Howard. Amare has NO kind of moves at all. It was hard to watch that Jazz-Suns game, because other than dunks, he is nothing. If Amare gets another injury, his game is gone. Yao, Kaman, and even Howard could still score close to where they are at right now if they were to lose some athletecism due to injury because they can make offensive moves. The last point I have to make about this, which is probably the most important is defense. In order to be a top ranking center in the NBA, you have to have some sort of presence in the middle. Amare lets people walk all over him game after game, and doesnt seem to mind. I mean, he let Memhet Okur make a post move and dunk over him with 2 hands. How does the "2nd best center of the NBA" let a 3 point shooting center do that?? He gives no effort on defense. He doesn't even average 1 block per game. He's very one-dimensional. Yao may not be the greatest athlete in the world, but he makes his presence known as long as the refs call a game right for him. Howard is a shot blocking machine and changes many shots. Kaman, will body you up and push you out of your comfort zone and rebound and averages nearly 3 blocks per game. With all if this being said, I truly believe that Amare Stoudamire is the most overrated player in the NBA as far as big men go. He's great for the Suns and makes them a better team, but Steve Nash made Amare an all-star, the same way he makes Marion an offensive force. See how Stoudamire does with Rafer as his point or Carlos Arroyo, or Dan Dickau or when Nash retires, see how many all star games he'll make then. He's a less skilled version of Shawn Kemp who has the best point guard in the NBA today. I'll take Yao, Howard, or Kaman over Amare any day on my team.
Like to add, these are the numbers he gave up in the last few games: vs. Bucks: Bogut, 29 pts and 11 rebs. vs. Jazz: Okur, 22 pts and 17 rebs. vs. Pacers: Foster, 6 pts. and 11 rebs. vs. Hornets: Chandler, 19 pts. and 11 rebs. If our center was giving up numbers like that, the trade call would be in full blast.
