Top 100 NBA Players: #58

Amare Stoudemire

(BBR: #58)

Amare Stoudemire has been one of the best players in the league for the past decade, despite missing chunks of time for 3 separate injuries over that time. He was named to the All-NBA First Team the season after he had two major knee surgeries, and he still isn't slowing down.

Amare started out on the fast track. In just his third year he was the #3 player in the entire league, although he didn't get recognized for it at the time because everyone fell in love with new teammate Steve Nash. People attributed Amare's great season to Nash's skill at getting him the ball, and while it had to have helped, there's no doubt that he was improving also. Here are his numbers from that season:

Stoudemire - 26.0 pts, 8.9 reb, 1.6 blk, .559 FG%

His numbers were even better in the playoffs that year, when he led the Suns to the Western Conference Finals as their best player. Yes, you read that right, and this is coming from one of the biggest Steve Nash fans you will ever meet. Here are his playoff stats:

Stoudemire - 29.9 pts, 10.7 reb, 2.0 blk, .539 FG%

The argument that Nash made Stoudemire was put to the test last season, when Amare left Nash's side for the first time in 6 years to play in New York, and the result was one of his best seasons yet, despite what many Suns fans predicted. It only goes to show that Amare really was a superstar player in Phoenix, and that he really could have won the 2006 MVP if he hadn't blown out his knee.

Amare once again took the Suns to the Western Conference Finals in 2010, although he didn't play as well in the playoffs, allowing Jason Richardson to take the title of Best Sun in the playoffs, and as a result they once again failed to make the Finals.

Other than the season that was virtually lost to injury and his rookie season, Amare has always averaged over 20 points and 8 rebounds per game, and he was shot over 50% in six straight seasons. He has been in the top 10 in scoring 4 times and in shooting percentage 5 times. All that, and he is still only 28 years old, with plenty of time to progress as a player before he starts declining.

Amare is not the scorer that Dantley was, but he's already experienced much more playoff success than Dantley, and has also shot the ball better and rebounded it more often than Dantley. He's made more appearances on the All-NBA Team and been traded less. It all adds up to Amare being a better overall player than Dantley, and his best may be still to come.