via NYDailynews.com
Nobody saw this coming. Sometimes you don't see good stories coming in sports, they just happen. But here is the story on the NBA season so far: Amar'e Stoudemire has opened better in New York, a lot better, than LeBron James has in Miami. Opened so much better it's not even close.
James has Dwyane Wade with him, and Chris Bosh. Stoudemire does not. No matter. He's played better than LeBron has. And is having a lot more fun. A lot of things were supposed to happen over the first 20 games of the NBA season. Not that.
It will always be a fact that the Knicks were offering Stoudemire more money, and more years, than anybody else was going to offer him. The Knicks had wasted seasons clearing cap space, they had money to spend and they were going to spend it on somebody. And there Amar'e Stoudemire was.
They gave him nearly $100 million and at the time, they probably did think he gave them their best shot at LeBron, even if the Knicks never had a shot at LeBron, the big-talk geniuses representing him had fallen in love with the idea of him going to South Beach.
Which he did. LeBron went with Wade and Bosh. Stoudemire went to the Garden with Raymond Felton. Now you can't have a better first month in the big, bad city than he's had. He has made himself somebody to watch, is making the Knicks a team to watch, at least for now. The Yankees probably wish some of their big-ticket stars would come out of the gate like this.
Going into Sunday's game in Toronto, the Knicks have a record of 11-9 after beating the Hornets in New Orleans on Friday night. The Miami Heat, who were going to win so many games this season they were going to make us all dizzy with excitement, giddy with excitement, are 13-8. Their biggest moment, their signature win, was punishing the pathetic Cavaliers on the night of LeBron's return to Cleveland.
Stoudemire is more fun to watch, the Knicks are more fun to watch so far. The Knicks have been a better road team. The centerpiece of it all has been Stoudemire, who is averaging nearly 25 points a game, to go with 8.7 rebounds a game. Stoudemire isn't playing with Steve Nash anymore, but Felton is giving the Knicks 18 points a game and more than eight assists.
We know there have to be nights when LeBron thinks he should have stayed in Cleveland, you bet. But you wonder if he ever sees the fun Stoudemire is having and thinks about what would have happened if he'd come here.
Does this last with the Knicks? Who in the world knows? Does a fast start mean they are automatically a playoff team? Of course not. You watch them play, even now, watch Brook Lopez do what he wants inside, and see how much Stoudemire needs another big man to play alongside him. But they have played a quarter-of-a-season and they are two games over .500 and tell me which Knick fan wouldn't have signed up for that when the season began?
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