As we head into the preseason, and we all prepare for my NBA Prediction Extravaganza, which will make it’s debut before the NBA season starts, I wanted to touch on what is probably the biggest story of the latter part of the offseason: The injury of, and surgery to, Amare Stoudemire. I wanted to break down where the Suns WERE heading, what happened, and where we can expect them to go in 05-06.
Literally, the last thing the Suns needed this season :
Already wobbly from a very chaotic and bumbling offseason, the Suns were rocked with the news that F/C Amare Stoudemire will miss the next 4 months because a microfracture surgery that was required to repair a tear in one of his knees.
The surgery was called a success by team doctors and officials, but the long term impact is cloudy at best. This type of injury, and the procedure to fix it, has already been an ordeal that destroyed Penny Hardaway’s career, and it also forced other players to lose effectiveness earlier on in their careers then they otherwise would have. Chris Webber and Allan Houston come to mind as players who were not able to recover their lost athletic ability. Houston may end up retiring during the season and Webber has been playing on one leg (a shell of himself) for at least a year now.
The good news for Stoudemire is that the surgeon who performed the operation, Dr. Thomas Carter, said that his knee, elsewhere, was structurally sound and that young players (Stoudemire is 23) do have a better chance of recovery than a player with several years of mileage already on the knee. In addition, the tear itself did not appear, to the doctor, to be anything more than a small-to-normal sized lesion….meaning they caught this quite early in the process before much damage had been done.
Still, the questions do linger: First, will the Suns have to modify their STYLE of play because of the loss? Second, is there any hope that the team can remain in the playoff hunt without their best player?
Coming into the season the team was already going to have to slightly change their style of play. Gone were the outside shooting skills of Quentin Richardson and Joe Johnson and in their place were Raja Bell and Kurt Thomas. This was going to mean a more traditional lineup on the court (Stoudemire at PF, Marion at SF, Thomas at C), and a more defensive style of play. The inside was not going to be as freed up as it had been with Johnson and Richardson, because Bell simply is not the shooter they were. The team was going to still get its points on the break, in fact the improved defense could have meant more fast break opportunities, but the half-court offense was bound to look quite a bit differently. A little more motion, a little less standing and bombing, some pick-and-pop with Kurt Thomas mixed in with the already devastating pick-and-roll combination of Stoudemire and Nash. In general the team was going to have to slow down it’s half-court offense quite a bit.
Now with the loss of Stoudemire the inside threat has all but vanished. Shawn Marion moves back up to PF, but lacks the size to post anyone up. James Jones (trade pick up from the Pacers) moves in to start at SF, and MUST improve his shot selection. The Suns lose their best pick-and-roll option and thus will have to compensate with added motion by every player and a relentless attacking of the basket in the hopes of drawing enough fouls to minimize the loss of the high % shots that Amare got them last year. Interestingly, even though the team lost much of their fast break power with Stoudemire gone, they are probably going to have to TRY to push the ball even more than they were planning to already. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the simple fact of the matter is that their half-court game was already going sketchy to begin with and it got a WHOLE lot worse minus their only true half-court mismatch.
In short I expect to see an expanded role for SG Raja Bell (brought in to add defense for a much cheaper price than Joe Johnson robbed the Hawks for), more running, and more motion offense in the half-court. If Jones can somehow play out of his mind, and Kurt Thomas can give the team any kind of post up game, the team might be able to hover around the 8th seed in the hopes that Stoudemire’s return can vault them into a top 6 position. The problem here is that’s it’s Kurt Thomas, and the last time anyone should have cared about Kurt Thomas was when he was some kind of phenom playing for TCU….in college. He can, however, be meaner than chicken shit at just about any time…so he has that going for him.
The second question still remains: Is there any hope the team can remain in the hunt until Stoudemire returns? While the Eastern Conference has grown stronger, and the West SLIGHTLY weaker, I don’t see how the Suns can stay in the hunt for 4 months. One? Yes. Two? Probably. Three? Maybe. However, for this team to stay in the hunt for four months they have to have amazing seasons from all their starters, make a huge mid-season trade, or have some teams that are more talented on paper (Golden State, Seattle, Denver?) totally implode. This of course assumes that no team jumps up and surprises us, and it assumes that Amare can come back and play effectively right away. Worst-case is that it takes him a month to get into the swing of things, which would all but seal the team’s fate anyhow.
My final analysis of the situation though is an analysis of personality. I give major credit to Stoudemire for telling the team of his injury BEFORE the team agreed to resign him to a max deal which gives him roughly $73 million over the next 5 years. He could have said nothing and then sprung this on them afterwards, not giving them a chance to cover their rears. He was under no real obligation to tell the team he simply did so out of principle.
I also give major credit to the Suns for resigning him anyhow. Yes, there is a small chance that Stoudemire is never the player they gave all that money too, but look at the alternative. To play games with him would have surely made him leave when his current deal ran out; it would also have hurt the team’s reputation in the eyes of potential future free agents who had considered the Suns a possible home. It would have sent the message that the team doesn’t mind not taking care of it’s own in questionable situations. Right or wrong these are things that players (and their agents) look at when signing with teams. So credit the team for seeing the big picture. There is a very good chance Amare comes back and has many more MVP-type seasons for the team, and there is a very good chance that other players saw this and were impressed.
Unfortunately, for the team what probably won’t be impressive will be their record at the end of the season. It would take an amazing winning steak at the end of the season to pull out anywhere near 50 wins, and I can’t see it happening under these conditions. What started as a confusing and frustrating offseason for the Suns fans has continued with an injury to the one man the Suns could least afford to lose. The Suns should still be fun to watch, but the changes might be too large and the losses too immense for them to overcome.
Time to tell about some folks I like to read
Nick Pomazak predicts what I would consider to be one of the bigger upsets of the season so far in the NFL. Find out what I’m talking about and read his latest column. He also talks about the Orgy Boat…..just for laughs.
Patrick Nguyen gives us a great review of the latest Harry Potter book. If you haven’t read it yet, but think you might I would definitely give it read. He also says some things about Olympic Basketball that I pray are wrong, but they probably aren’t.
Oil Porter. Not to be confused with Oil Can Boyd. I know it would be f*ckin’ “rad” to have Oil Can Boyd writing for Inside Pulse, but it just isn’t the cards folks. Luckily, for whoever makes money off this baby a real writer IS writing….it’s Porter. So find it and love it and if you promise to make an honest “it” out of it, I’ll let it love you back.
Until next time, Im PTC praying to Jesus that someday I get the love reserved for those on the official “Staff” list!!!
