Amar'e Stoudemire's Hopeless Ending and New Beginning

Cosmic misfortune has crushed Amar'e Stoudemire like a cartoon anvil. He's been twitching like a not-totally-dead Wile E. Coyote for years, regularly ducking out of the Knicks lineup to nurse one injury or another, returning each time with some aspect of his game altered or altogether absent. Sometimes he resembles a creaky version of his ebullient former self, and at others, he simply creaks. My aunt had an arthritic cocker spaniel who tried to leap when he was excited, but, because his weary doggy legs had no more leaping left in them, he would instead produce a clattering that sounded like rainfall, his toenails repeatedly lifting off the kitchen linoleum only a couple inches before striking the ground again. That's Amar'e in 2015. He lands before anyone notices he took off.

It speaks well of Stoudemire's skill that he makes this groundboundness work, to an extent. He can still catch and finish; his 16-footer is still smooth. That is, when he is un-sore and de-stiffened enough to be able to play at all. His body was time-bombish even when he could dance and pogo-stick through the lane, and it has now mostly fallen apart. A cruel law of the universe is that absurdly athletic big men often have an abbreviated shelf life. Human beings are not supposed to be so tall and so agile. Inevitably, their knees become noodly, or their backs twist the wrong way, then everything else goes to hell piece-by-piece. A sizeable portion of Stoudemire's time in New York was spent tweaking muscles he had never tweaked before. One imagines his mornings are unpleasant journeys of self-discovery. He yawns and slides out of bed to find that, all of a sudden, his ribs ache for no reason other than that his frame warps and groans like an old house during a seasonal shift.

It's a faint glimmer in Spike Lee's eye these days, but that first year after Stoudemire moved to New York—in particular, before Carmelo Anthony showed up—he was volcanic, out to prove all those stats he accrued in Phoenix were not owed primarily to Steve Nash, but to his own estimable talents. In December of 2010, you might have found quite a few Knicks who were enthused about what was perceived that past summer to be a consolation signing.

You know the rest of the story. New York's starfuckerish front office myopically traded half the roster for Melo. Amar'e receded into a secondary role, then began his sharp decline the following season. Two years into his contract, it became apparent James Dolan had written a check Stoudemire's physique couldn't cash.

If Amar'e is not exactly free now that he has agreed to a buyout—his fragility is a sort of cage—he is at least done in New York. Even better, he's reportedly set to sign with the Mavericks, which is an excellent choice that should help him transition from disappointment-dom into a modest rebirth. Rick Carlisle liberates players insofar as he considers what they do well and then tries to put them in a position where they are asked only to do those things. With the Knicks, Amar'e was defined by what he couldn't do anymore; in Dallas, he will be appreciated for what he can contribute. Specifically, he can score, especially in a familiar screen-and-roll offense that on nights when he's feeling a bit spry might run through him for a few possessions at a time. Maybe he's got an iconic old man playoff performance left in him. Carlisle coaxed a couple out of Vince Carter.

This is of course all projection, and Stoudemire's gum-cemented musculature isn't guaranteed to cooperate, but with the Mavs, he might play joyfully again. He will expect the best of himself because that's what made him great in his prime, but for the first time since his initial few seasons in Phoenix, Amar'e isn't bearing the weight of steep external expectation. He is finally being allowed to enter the third act of his career after being trapped in the second for three years too many, lumbering up and down the court at Madison Square Garden or sitting beside it in a suit with a many-zeroed salary figure hovering above his head. By leaving New York, he is shedding the context that made him a depressive figure, and by migrating to Dallas, he is giving himself a chance to succeed on the freshest terms he's ever going to get. Amar'e's story will always be a slightly sad, but all he can do now is author a hopeful ending.