Coming out party for Amare Stoudemire
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[size=-1]By SAM SMITH[/size]
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[size=-1]Chicago Tribune[/size]
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PHOENIX - Forget Jordanesque. Amare Stoudemire is conjuring up names at age 22 that Michael Jordan only could have read about, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and Rick Barry.
Amare Stoudemire is doing things to the San Antonio Spurs and Tim Duncan that are more reminiscent of the battles Wilt Chamberlain had with Bill Russell. Chamberlain may not have been the winner that often, but no one ever could stop him.
"It's becoming, `OK, he got 30. Big deal,''' Suns coach Mike D'Antoni laughed after practice Tuesday. "And against one of the best defensive teams, against maybe the best player in the game.
"This is something you write down, that you don't see very often. You do get yourself taking it for granted. I'm yelling, `More defense,' and my God, look what he's doing.
"You see a lot of (defenders') shoulders sagging. You see a lot of, `I don't know. What do we do now?'''
The Phoenix Suns rose from the ashes after trailing 3-0 in the Western Conference finals with their thrilling 111-106 victory Monday over the San Antonio Spurs. It enabled them to start to feel good about themselves for Game 5 here Wednesday. They have guard and top defender Joe Johnson back, they have got their fast-breaking, frenzied game back.
Because of all that, maybe the Spurs, who lost four straight in the conference semifinals last year, are becoming less sure of themselves.
But amid all the talk during this series, the historic play of Stoudemire at center has been obscured.
"His potential is unlimited," MVP teammate Steve Nash says of the 6-foot-10-inch center. "He can be the next Karl Malone, whoever he wants. He's already pretty close to that. As great as (former teammate Dirk (Nowitzki) was, he was under a lot of pressure to make shot after shot. Amare has the luxury of being a terrific athlete, an unbelievable finisher."
With his fourth consecutive game scoring at least 30 points in the conference finals, Stoudemire moved past Abdul-Jabbar to have the highest average ever for any player in his first conference finals. Abdul-Jabbar averaged 34.2 in the 1970 conference finals; Stoudemire is averaging 35.8 against the Spurs. He now owns the franchise record - and it had been Charles Barkley's_for consecutive 30-plus games in the playoffs. He is now one of seven players, including Robertson, Barry, Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Allen Iverson and Dwyane Wade joining this year, with back-to-back games of at least 35 points in their first conference finals. Against the rugged, defensive-oriented Spurs and Duncan, Stoudemire is averaging a mind-boggling 37 points per game in the regular season and playoffs.
"I've heard him say he wants to be the best ever," Suns' assistant Marc Iavaroni says. "And he loves the stage. The bigger the game, the better performance he has."
For instance, in Game 4 Stoudemire, whom even his biggest admirers admit doesn't share the same enthusiasm for defense as offense, made three classic defensive plays to save the game. First, he stole a rebound from Duncan, then he blocked Duncan at the basket as Duncan was about to dunk and then he chased down the clinching rebound.
Stoudemire isn't a good rebounder for his size and athletic abilities. Still, he's averaging 10.3 per game in the playoffs, almost by accident.
He has developed a reliable jump shot and free throw, shooting 82.5 percent against the Spurs.
He's not the best all-around player in the NBA yet, but you might take him over Kevin Garnett now and the Hall of Fame is filled with players at his position who did far less.
Now, he just has to win.
It probably won't happen this season. But his playoffs coming out party has been something to behold. He has raised his scoring average in every series, scoring 37, 41, 34 and 31 against the Spurs.
"He's a competitor," D'Antoni says. "It's what makes him one of the best in the game. He has developed his shot, he has strength, quickness, balance, big, soft hands. But it's the inner desire. You tell him he can't do something and he'll do it."
Stoudemire is a phenomenon because he shouldn't have been.
There are scores of hard-luck, humble-beginnings stories in the NBA, though few like Stoudemire's.
His father died of a heart attack when he was 12. His mother spent most of his life is prison on various theft convictions. His older brother was in prison on drug charges. He shuffled through a number of guardians and high schools, six different schools in Florida and North Carolina, some set up as virtual basketball fronts. He was ineligible as a junior for shoe deal connections. His senior team was barely .500. That's when he decided to skip college and come to the NBA the year after the Bulls drafted Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler.
Now he's something of a team leader. It was Stoudemire who slammed the locker room door after the Game 3 loss in San Antonio, one of the Suns' poorest games of the season, and yelled at his teammates: "We are not going to be swept!
"A lot of my friends say once the season is over and I look back and see the accomplishments, I'll be amazed," Stoudemire says.
"(But) I want to get better, learn more. I need to defend better, handle the ball, a lot of things that will help me get where I want to go, to a championship."
Few have profited doubting him.
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