A Good Sign?

By Craig Kwasniewski

Amare Stoudemire is up and running and playing at the TVSL (Toshiba Vegas Summer League). As I wrote last week (Stoudemire Facial), "I just hope that Stoudemire returns to at least 80% of the physical freak that he was before the knee surgery".

Well, looking at the photos and box scores from the first three games, he's improving. But this is against D-League and below talent. That's the whole thing about summer leagues, it's three weeks of rookies and second year players showcasing their talent against journeyman players. However, this doesn't stop local talk-radio homers from firing up the bandwagon when said first round draft pick has an above-average summer league game.

"Randy Foye is DOMINATING the TVSL!!!! Who needs Garnett anyway... Foye's the next Jordan!!!" (or something like that)

Anyway, here's the box scores from Stoudemire's return:

July 7th: 21 points and 8 rebounds vs. Minnesota
July 8th: 24 points and 1 rebound vs. New York
July 10th: 17 points and 9 rebounds vs. Detroit

Except for the Shaq-like 1 rebound, Amare's numbers are fairly decent. Though it should be noted that Stoudemire's averaging 8 personal fouls a game (???). What the hell is that? Are we playing Big East rules? So if Dwyane Wade was playing in the TVSL I'm guessing each opposing player would have 37 fouls a game.

Unlimited fouls and poor competition make statistics worthless in NBA Summer Leagues. It all comes down to the much underrated Naked Eye Evaluation (sorry John Hollinger).

Has anybody seen Amare play this summer? Feel free to post a comment or evaluation on how he looks. These photos showing him jumping is at least a good sign. Look, the man's one bad mutherfu.. (shut your mouth) and I'd hate to see his game fade along the likes of Webber and anyone else who's had the same surgery.

Comments

[coach]

yah , i've seen amare play . he's still a long way to amre of before.the explosiveness is not there yet. the rebounding is lacking .
let's just say that the present amare needs a lot of amore !

[striker]

vs the knicks he actually was posting up kinda strong and had some fluid movements during the game. a couple up fakes and seemed to be running well. he gave frye and lee tha bizness for the time he was in. don't think they played him in the later stages. the kid is coming along.....stay tuned.