Despite a disappointing season in 2014-15, Amar’e Stoudemire could provide plenty of offense off the bench for the Miami Heat in 2015-16.
Amar’e Stoudemire was signed by the Miami Heat over the offseason after a slightly disappointing spell with the Dallas Mavericks, who collapsed after adding Rajon Rondo to their team just before the trade deadline.
Stoudemire was once upon a time one of the best players in the League. A deadly offensive player and a competent defender, he earned multiple All-Star appearances in Phoenix and New York. He thrived in the ‘seven seconds or less’ offense run by Mike D’Antoni and Alvin Gentry and is arguably one of the greats of his generation.
Today, Amar’e is past it to a certain extent and this is why he will be nothing more than a role player in Miami. This is not be scoffed at, he will be a very important bench player for the Heat and should push the team into a position to contend in the Eastern conference. He believes he can reach his All-Star level, but I’m afraid he must be put down gently, there is a slim chance of this happening and it’s doubtful he will ever start a game for the Miami Heat.
To start with the obvious point, Stoudemire will immediately improve the bench scoring in South Beach. Last year’s big men Udonis Haslem and Chris Andersen were good defenders and could finish at the rim, but neither had any post moves or any kind of consistent mid-range game. This meant Miami’s build up play was slow on the whole as none of their big guys really wanted to shoot. Only Utah ran a slower paced offense than Miami last year. This wasn’t anything new, Miami were fourth from last the previous year. But the huge difference was of course injury disruption which disrupted offensive efficiency. Miami dropped from 2nd to 22nd in that department and a large reason for this was their bench. Only Orlando and Cleveland got less points from their bench last season. Stoudemire immediately helps with this as he can comfortably score double figures, something Spoelstra has not had from a bench guy in a long time.
Stoudemire’s offensive stats make for pleasant reading. He is a 40 percent jump shooter during last season and he shot around 60 percent from lay-up opportunities, and the Heat create a lot of these through good pick and roll play. His post moves were good as shown by shooting 40-62 from hook shots. This is of course a very small sample, but the percentage should be enough to persuade Spoelstra to run some post plays for the former star. Stoudemire should help create space on the perimeter as he is a genuine offensive threat inside the paint, and this will be a luxury Miami did not have last year.
The signing of Gerald Green will be important, as he can attack the space created by Stoudemire as he seems to have a gung-ho approach to attacking the basket. He is also useful in the pick and roll due to his mobility, and he gives Mario Chalmers and Goran Dragic a genuine pick and pop partner in the bench unit that will improve their offense in many different ways.
His defense isn’t quite as pretty, but you cannot grind your way to titles without an offensive spark on your bench. Amare’s defensive win share was at an all time low in New York at 0.7 and it got even worse at Dallas as it sunk to 0.3. This may be a slight problem in the short term, but his impact will be essential and he genuinely could be one of the bargains in the League this summer.
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