Coaches, mates notice Amaré's expanded game

[azdad1978]

Paul Coro
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 2, 2005 12:00 AM

The Suns officially get back to work Monday, when they go through a circuit of media duties and catch a bus to Tucson for a weeklong training camp.

But Amaré Stoudemire really never stopped working since the playoffs. By his count, he took two weeks off this summer outside of his basketball training and his expanding off-court demands.

You will see it when he drives to his left, pushes the fast break with the dribble, pulls up for jumpers and - gulp - shoots the corner three-pointer. After pickup games, Stoudemire's shooting drills now regularly include long streaks of made threes.



"I'm ready to go," Stoudemire said. "I'm really trying to win a championship this year. That's what I'm striving for. There are a lot of new guys and there have been some huge changes, but I think it's all for the best to help this team become a champion. That's what it is all about."

Stoudemire committed himself, whether it was occasional trips to America West Arena for workouts with Suns athletic trainers, or asking Phoenix assistant coach Phil Weber to come to Orlando for five days so he could continue the basketball development they did at the arena.

"His mind-set is about as good as it gets," Weber said. "Because of how good he is, some other factors came up this summer that other people don't have to worry about. He did whatever I asked for as long as I asked. He just wants to be the best player he can be."

The pair worked primarily on offense, leaving the defensive adjustments to come from assistant Marc Iavaroni via video lessons. Stoudemire and Weber worked on perimeter moves usually reserved for backcourt players.

Suns power forward Brian Grant, signed this summer, carries the best perspective for Stoudemire's development as a former foe. He knew every scouting report on Stoudemire said to force him left. When he did that during one of last month's voluntary workout games, Stoudemire blew by him.

"Oops," Grant told the coaches. "Guess you can't do that anymore."

Stoudemire said he liked the team's summer moves, although he did make a push for the Suns to try to keep Joe Johnson. Any distaste seems to come from only Johnson's side. Stoudemire said they were "real good friends" and hung out away from basketball.

"I can't hate him for the move he made because it was a smart move on his behalf," Stoudemire said.

The additions of Grant and Kurt Thomas, two veteran post players, were especially pleasing to Stoudemire, who now won't have to guard opponents' top post players and may get more space to operate. He played frequently last month with the team's other additions, including the standout of them all, guard Raja Bell.

"I'm impressed," Stoudemire said. "I think we're going to be even better, especially defensively, and we've still got the offensive game."

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/1002amaresuns1002.html

 

[carey]

"I can't hate him for the move he made because it was a smart move on his behalf," Stoudemire said.

Does this set off alarms with anyone else? I always assumed that everyone, except for Joe Johnson, thought that leaving Phoenix was a big mistake.

 

[Chaplin]

Does this set off alarms with anyone else? I always assumed that everyone, except for Joe Johnson, thought that leaving Phoenix was a big mistake.

One thing Amare is now, is very diplomatic. I would never expect him to call Joe Johnson stupid for going to the Hawks.

 

[myrondizzo]

Does this set off alarms with anyone else? I always assumed that everyone, except for Joe Johnson, thought that leaving Phoenix was a big mistake.

i have heard nash say the same thing.

 

[Nash to Amare]

Yeah I think they were told to say that or something. I doubt they really believe that though.

 

[Arizona's Finest]

Does this set off alarms with anyone else? I always assumed that everyone, except for Joe Johnson, thought that leaving Phoenix was a big mistake.

Guys as much as we like to look at things from fans point of view where winning = happiness, the players will never look down on another player for going for the money. Essentially Amare is saying that Joe is doing what is best for him and his family. It would be asanine for Amare to come down on Joe for not wanting to be the fourth guy on this team when Amare has a much different perspective obviously.

And i know many of you are going to say Joe could have gotten the same money and won here in Phoenix. One, Opportunity of being the go to guy leads to more neodrsement opportunities, signing lucrative contracts later, and the bonuses that go with being an all star and the focus of a teams marketing campaign. Its unquatifiable how much the actual difference in money is, but it does exist. Two, Amare has the respect of his peers in the league (a very big issue among pro athletes) as he is the Suns primary option and gets the stats that go along with that. Joe wants to become a star in the league and admittedly no matter what he did, he would be behind both Nash and Amare (due to last seasons exploits) in terms of national publicity. There is only so much love one team is allowed to get.

It is the diplomatic thing to say and very common for players to understand looking out for number one when it comes to these types of situations. Its us as fans who fail to understand why players make the decisions they do and this stems from putting our POV on players who see things a completly different way....

 

[Chaz]

Joe got paid.

He has $70 million guaranteed and a chance to shine on his own.

As a money decision it was probably a good one.


As a basketball, chance of winning type decision? Not so good.

 

[playstation]

i think you guys are missing the point of this article:

You will see it when he drives to his left, pushes the fast break with the dribble, pulls up for jumpers and - gulp - shoots the corner three-pointer.

i'm getting the same goosebumps i got at the start of camp last season when amare proclaimed "you are going to see some crazy stuff this year, like triple teams and stuff".

i'm going to go out on the limb and agree with him that the suns will be better this season (assuming health, which is never a good assumption). i say this because we are obviously better defensively, and offensively while we lose 3 pointers, that's more shots for the resident beast, who seems to have no problems scoring in any scenario.

stoudemire only avg'd 16.7 shots/game last season, compared to much higher numbers for the other top players in the league: 20.1 for kobe, 21.1 for lebron, 18.5 for dirk. i think upping that shot/game avg to around a dirk number would be pretty good.

also, don't forget that steve nash has led the best offense in the league for 3 years running. i'm not worried about offense at all to be honest. i'm just hoping that SOMEONE, either diaw, or barbosa, or FA pickup, can spell nash so coach doesn't kill him over the course of the season.

 

[Amare32]

For us to be a contending for years and for Amare to be the go to guy on a title winning team he needs to stay in the post and to improve his defense. Shooting threes is not what we need from him.

 

[playstation]

Guys as much as we like to look at things from fans point of view where winning = happiness, the players will never look down on another player for going for the money. Essentially Amare is saying that Joe is doing what is best for him and his family. It would be asanine for Amare to come down on Joe for not wanting to be the fourth guy on this team when Amare has a much different perspective obviously.

And i know many of you are going to say Joe could have gotten the same money and won here in Phoenix. One, Opportunity of being the go to guy leads to more neodrsement opportunities, signing lucrative contracts later, and the bonuses that go with being an all star and the focus of a teams marketing campaign. Its unquatifiable how much the actual difference in money is, but it does exist. Two, Amare has the respect of his peers in the league (a very big issue among pro athletes) as he is the Suns primary option and gets the stats that go along with that. Joe wants to become a star in the league and admittedly no matter what he did, he would be behind both Nash and Amare (due to last seasons exploits) in terms of national publicity. There is only so much love one team is allowed to get.

It is the diplomatic thing to say and very common for players to understand looking out for number one when it comes to these types of situations. Its us as fans who fail to understand why players make the decisions they do and this stems from putting our POV on players who see things a completly different way....

totally disagree. it depends on how you look at it. are you going to get more endorsement opportunities as the best player on a crappy team or a standout (but not a leader) on the best team? why do great players join the yankees? or go to USC? or better yet, why does manu and a host of other players take less to play with TD? to leave the yankees so that you can be a standout for the frickin milwaukee brewers is what is asinine, imo.

however, i do agree that amare cannot say that. he's got more on the line, and has nothing to gain from making the comment anyways.

 

[elindholm]

I hope that the Suns have figured out a way to improve Stoudemire's passing vision. He is going to be routinely double-teamed this season, and sometimes he'll be able to force his way through it, but other times he won't. If the Magic Pass Fairy came along and gave Stoudemire the same skill in this department that Chris Webber has, he'd get five assists per game easily and would become an even more fearsome offensive weapon.

 

[George O'Brien]

For us to be a contending for years and for Amare to be the go to guy on a title winning team he needs to stay in the post and to improve his defense. Shooting threes is not what we need from him.

If Amare's go left move is as good as they say, you can expect opponents are going to pack the paint to an even greater extent than last year. This will leave Amare even more wide open on the the outside than last year. If opponents are going to conced the jumper, why not make it a three if he's good at it?

One of the reasons that Dirk is so widely feared is that he hit 40% of his three point shots (91 of 228 ). No one with a big lineup can go out to challenge his three point shots. The Suns were more successful than other teams because they would go small, but only because they knew Dirk was not going to hurt them going low. How would you defend Dirk if he was a major inside threat?

Right now, Dirk is the only big man who is a serious three point threat. Rasheed Wallace shoots a lot of them, but only hit 31.8% of them. Antoine Walker shot just 32.3%

Shareef Abdur-Rahim did hit 38.5%, but this was on 15 of 39, which was not enough to make a difference.

None of the most well known inside guys did anything for three. For the entire season, Garnet hit only 6 of 25, Duncan hit 3 of 9, Kenyon Martin went 0 for 12, Jermaine O'Neal went 1 of 6. and Pau Gasol was 1 of 6.

Last season Dirk averaged 26.1 ppg without being a serious inside threat. If Amare could shoot like Dirk...

 

[thegrahamcrackr]

totally disagree. it depends on how you look at it. are you going to get more endorsement opportunities as the best player on a crappy team or a standout (but not a leader) on the best team? why do great players join the yankees? or go to USC? or better yet, why does manu and a host of other players take less to play with TD? to leave the yankees so that you can be a standout for the frickin milwaukee brewers is what is asinine, imo.

Well you can throw out the Yankee example due to the market size. When you are talking about two comparable markets, you will get more endorsements if you are the star of a bad team than you will if you are the 4th option on a good team.

People like Manu take less money to play with Duncan because they want to win. Some people care about being a winner where some people care about the money and chance to make a name for themself.

 

[Chaz]

I hope that the Suns have figured out a way to improve Stoudemire's passing vision. He is going to be routinely double-teamed this season, and sometimes he'll be able to force his way through it, but other times he won't. If the Magic Pass Fairy came along and gave Stoudemire the same skill in this department that Chris Webber has, he'd get five assists per game easily and would become an even more fearsome offensive weapon.

You are right. However, he doesn't need to be Chris Webber to be successful at passing out of a double team. Improvement in his vision would help his overall consistancy and make people hesitate to commit. I suspect he will continue to rely on Steve Nash's vision to avoid these double teams rather than his own. Of course so far Amare one-on-one has been more of a face up player than a post up player. I would think it is much harder to pass off of a face up and drive situation than a back to the basket situation. I thought Amare has some very cleaver plays last season and showed some potential in finding guys inside.

It is a late developing aspect but considering where it was 2 years ago it is pretty incredible.

 

[Amare32]

If Amare's go left move is as good as they say, you can expect opponents are going to pack the paint to an even greater extent than last year. This will leave Amare even more wide open on the the outside than last year. If opponents are going to conced the jumper, why not make it a three if he's good at it?

One of the reasons that Dirk is so widely feared is that he hit 40% of his three point shots (91 of 228 ). No one with a big lineup can go out to challenge his three point shots. The Suns were more successful than other teams because they would go small, but only because they knew Dirk was not going to hurt them going low. How would you defend Dirk if he was a major inside threat?

Right now, Dirk is the only big man who is a serious three point threat. Rasheed Wallace shoots a lot of them, but only hit 31.8% of them. Antoine Walker shot just 32.3%

Shareef Abdur-Rahim did hit 38.5%, but this was on 15 of 39, which was not enough to make a difference.

None of the most well known inside guys did anything for three. For the entire season, Garnet hit only 6 of 25, Duncan hit 3 of 9, Kenyon Martin went 0 for 12, Jermaine O'Neal went 1 of 6. and Pau Gasol was 1 of 6.

Last season Dirk averaged 26.1 ppg without being a serious inside threat. If Amare could shoot like Dirk...

Shooting threes and becoming a threat out there is all well and good but I would rather Amare be a force by getting more rebounds and becoming a better defensive player. Those are his two main weaknesses that he needs to improve. If he becomes a better defensive player he will become a real complete player and a guy teams will fear even more than they do now. It would also help us become a better defensive team defending the paint.

 

[George O'Brien]

Shooting threes and becoming a threat out there is all well and good but I would rather Amare be a force by getting more rebounds and becoming a better defensive player. Those are his two main weaknesses that he needs to improve. If he becomes a better defensive player he will become a real complete player and a guy teams will fear even more than they do now. It would also help us become a better defensive team defending the paint.

The article suggests that the Suns have been working with him on his defense mostly by having him review videos. I'm unclear as to how effective this approach is, but in that rotation is mostly about recognition, it might help.

The same would hold with passing out of double teams. There is no evidence that he can't pass out of the double teams, just that his recognition is too slow.

 

[JCSunsfan]

The article suggests that the Suns have been working with him on his defense mostly by having him review videos. I'm unclear as to how effective this approach is, but in that rotation is mostly about recognition, it might help.

The same would hold with passing out of double teams. There is no evidence that he can't pass out of the double teams, just that his recognition is too slow.

It seems that Amare has no problem doing whatever he wills his body to do. Great coordination and strength. This is probably the best way to improve his defense--improve his recognition and response.

BTW, if Amare can drive left and hit 35% from 3, he will be the most dominant player in the game without debate.

Not only that, he will score 30+ per game. With that kind of offensive force, it makes sense to surround him with defensive talent and shooters.

 

[Chaplin]

If on the off chance Amare Stoudemire is standing over in the corner at the 3-point line, it will be a broken play. There should be no play run where Stoudemire ends up in the corner that far out.

 

[elindholm]

If on the off chance Amare Stoudemire is standing over in the corner at the 3-point line, it will be a broken play. There should be no play run where Stoudemire ends up in the corner that far out.

Yes, good point. It's cute if Stoudemire can hit three-pointers, but he shouldn't be spending any time 20-plus feet from the basket.

 

[Treesquid PhD]

Shooting threes and becoming a threat out there is all well and good but I would rather Amare be a force by getting more rebounds and becoming a better defensive player. Those are his two main weaknesses that he needs to improve. If he becomes a better defensive player he will become a real complete player and a guy teams will fear even more than they do now. It would also help us become a better defensive team defending the paint.

Like another article said the fans coaches and media want Amare to be all things right now. I am pretty conident Amare is well aware he needs to be a force on all ends of the court and will take the apprioproate steps to get there.

It seems we have have more than enough faith the Boris Daiw will be able to round all facets of his game without him ever doing a damn thing in the NBA can we not have this same faith in Amare?

 

[Arizona's Finest]

totally disagree. it depends on how you look at it. are you going to get more endorsement opportunities as the best player on a crappy team or a standout (but not a leader) on the best team? why do great players join the yankees? or go to USC? or better yet, why does manu and a host of other players take less to play with TD? to leave the yankees so that you can be a standout for the frickin milwaukee brewers is what is asinine, imo.

however, i do agree that amare cannot say that. he's got more on the line, and has nothing to gain from making the comment anyways.

My point has less to do with the type of team he plays on rather than the numbers he puts up on the team. Everybody loves a winner buts its not inconcievable that Joe will average 5 points more per game on the Hawks (but while shooting a lower percentage i would bet) More points = More publicity.

PLus Joe probaly thinks he could lift the Hawks out of their current malaise. We assume the hawks will never get beeter because of recent trends, but I'm sure Joe and the current players feel otherwise. If he does the improbable and gets Atlanta to the post season in the next two years, he will be seen as the primary reason and given love around the league as one of the few real difference makers. Oppose this to playing well for a Championship Suns where the lions share of the credit will always go to Amare and Nash. Its all relative but Joes chances of increasing his own personal "brand equity" is better on a starless hawks team.

 

[Arizona's Finest]

If on the off chance Amare Stoudemire is standing over in the corner at the 3-point line, it will be a broken play. There should be no play run where Stoudemire ends up in the corner that far out.

Yes, good point. It's cute if Stoudemire can hit three-pointers, but he shouldn't be spending any time 20-plus feet from the basket.

While I most def. agree Amare should be spending the lion share of his time in the paint, but the farther out he can shoot, the more teams are going to have to respect his jumper and give him an edge getting into the paint. If he develops the skill, he will be come unstoppable. Its more important that he doesn't fall in love with his ability to shoot the three rather than him having the ability to do it well. KG has gotten it seems, further and further out of the paint, and i feel its made his game somewhat less consistently effective.

 

[elindholm]

If he develops the skill, he will be come unstoppable.

Only if he also develops the skill of putting the ball on the floor for several dribbles on the way to the basket, which is much more difficult for a man his size. One reason that the three-point shot is such an asset to Nowitzki's game is that he plays on the perimeter anyway. Stoudemire needs to be money from 15 feet, where he's only a single dribble and two steps away from the rim. But there's no way that the three-pointer can be incorporated into what he already does without making him a completely different, and likely less effective, offensive player.

KG has gotten it seems, further and further out of the paint, and i feel its made his game somewhat less consistently effective.

Right, and that's in spite of the fact that his handle is much better than Stoudemire's.

 

[Nash to Amare]

Amare is going to be freaking awesome next year. He already does amazing things but wait till next year. This is Jordan in the making.

 

[George O'Brien]

If he develops the skill, he will be come unstoppable.

Only if he also develops the skill of putting the ball on the floor for several dribbles on the way to the basket, which is much more difficult for a man his size. One reason that the three-point shot is such an asset to Nowitzki's game is that he plays on the perimeter anyway. Stoudemire needs to be money from 15 feet, where he's only a single dribble and two steps away from the rim. But there's no way that the three-pointer can be incorporated into what he already does without making him a completely different, and likely less effective, offensive player.

KG has gotten it seems, further and further out of the paint, and i feel its made his game somewhat less consistently effective.

Right, and that's in spite of the fact that his handle is much better than Stoudemire's.

It's an interesting question. Has Amare developed enough of a handle necessary to begin drives from the three point line? The whole "point center" thing is based on him being able to dribble and distribute. If Amare lacks an adequate handle, then point center is irrelevant.