Amar’e Stoudemire will go into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday. Just about everyone saw the potential early on.
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PHOENIX — In the weeks before the 2002 NBA Draft, Jerry Colangelo had made up his mind. He wanted Amar’e Stoudemire, the explosive, powerful forward from Florida who had attended six different high schools.
Normally, the Phoenix Suns chairman was against drafting players who had not attended college, but Stoudemire, he quickly learned, was different. Colangelo had watched Stoudemire in the McDonald’s All-American Game. He saw him driving into the lane, hanging in the air and sinking a soft jumper. He saw him attack the basket with uncommon aggression.
As Stoudemire stood at the foul line that afternoon, ESPN’s Dave Sims read from Stoudemire’s bio. “You talk about ambition,” he said on the broadcast. “His No. 1 goal is to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame — and he’s not even out of high school yet.”
That belief turned out to be a guiding force. On Saturday, Stoudemire will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the exclamation point of a remarkable career. In his prime, Stoudemire was a top 10 player, as explosive as anyone in the league. As a veteran, he was a post player who had to re-invent himself because of bad knees. But to start, he was a teenager with as much uncertainty as potential.
The journey started in Phoenix, with Colangelo trying to figure out how the Suns could draft Stoudemire with the ninth pick — he didn’t think he’d last that long — and how the organization could best prepare him for the NBA. Stoudemire’s background was made to be an issue. In addition to the high schools, his mother had spent time in jail for various crimes.
Colangelo thought Stoudemire’s history said something about his mental toughness and determination. The more he was around Stoudemire, the more he liked him. At his pre-draft workout in Phoenix, Stoudemire — 6-feet-9 ½ inches and 246 pounds — was so aggressive that he knocked out an opponent’s teeth on a play near the rim.
“He didn’t hit many midrange shots and had no 3-point accuracy to speak of, but he just had something about him,” Bryan Colangelo, the Suns’ general manager and Colangelo’s son, wrote in an email to The Athletic. “Charisma, curiosity, ferocity are words that come to mind. He was a live wire that brought unusual energy to a normally tense and apprehensive environment. These young men are literally trying out and competing for their life’s dream. Somehow Amar’e was immune to the pressure and appeared unfazed, even as an 18-year-old high schooler among some older and so-called wiser prospects. He literally had the gym mesmerized.”
Today, American high school players cannot directly enter the NBA. Per league rules, they must be at least 19 years old and have aged at least a year beyond their high school graduation. In 2002, high school players had no such limitations. Entering the 2002 draft, 11 high school players had been selected in the first round over the previous six years.
Colangelo called Herb Rudoy, Stoudemire’s agent, a man he had known for years. He recalled telling him: “Herb, you can talk to him, but he wants to come here, and I want him here. The real problem is, at No. 9, I don’t see how that happens.”
The Suns executive feared that once other teams ahead of Phoenix in the draft order saw Stoudemire up close, they’d fall in love with him as he had. Colangelo and Rudoy found a solution. They’d hide him. “We just told everybody — I don’t remember what — that he had a bad knee, a bad shoulder and that he couldn’t work out,” Rudoy said.
Looking back, the agent is surprised teams believed him. He thought they would at least want to bring in Stoudemire for an interview. None did that he could remember. “I guess in those days I was the only honest agent around,” Rudoy said with a laugh. “In a field filled with devious people, they took my word.”
On June 26, 2002, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, Stoudemire heard his name and stood with excitement. He hugged friends and family and placed a Phoenix Suns cap atop his head. The TNT crew compared him to Ben Wallace, the defensive star for the Detroit Pistons. Charles Barkley said the selection meant the Suns were entering a rebuilding phase.
Local and national media had similar reactions. Pedro Gomez, a columnist at The Arizona Republic, called the drafting of Stoudemire one of the biggest gambles in franchise history. ESPN draft specialist Chad Ford said Stoudemire might be the next Antonio McDyess but added that he’s a long way away. The Suns had a different perspective. “We think he’s a potential superstar,” said Dick Van Arsdale, the team’s personnel director.
His teammates weren’t so sure — until they met him. Entering his second year in Phoenix, center Jake Voskuhl showed up for summer league workouts. He went into the Suns locker room and hugged Casey Jacobsen, the Stanford guard the Suns had chosen at No. 22. “Where’s the high school kid?” he said.
Voskuhl walked onto the practice court. There were so many players it took a few seconds to find Stoudemire. Once he did, he was stunned. “He was like a man-child. This dude’s bigger than me,” said Voskuhl, who stood 6-feet-11, 245 pounds. “He wasn’t taller than me, but he was bigger than me. This is a high school kid?”
Jacobsen didn’t get a chance to really talk to Stoudemire until they traveled to New York for the NBA rookie symposium. He sat beside Stoudemire in an exit row on a commercial flight. Jacobsen remembers thinking: This 6-9, physical specimen was just playing high school basketball three months ago? “Like, that didn’t compute in my mind,” Jacobsen said. “I had just finished my third year in college, and he was twice my size.”
Jacobsen found Stoudemire engaging. He asked if he had leaned toward a particular college before entering the draft. Stoudemire told him he probably would’ve played for John Calipari at Memphis. Still, Jacobsen couldn’t help but wonder how this would translate. Is this guy going to be in for a rude awakening?
Once practice started, Jacobsen realized he need not worry. “It doesn’t take more than 10 minutes, man,” he said. “And we have Shawn Marion, whose nickname is The Matrix. One of the freakier athletes that you will find in the NBA at the time. And Amar’e Stoudemire is freakier than even The Matrix. He’s more powerful. He’s longer. And he finishes around the rim stronger than even Shawn Marion, who’s an NBA All-Star. Within one practice, I’m like, ‘Whoa. The physical part is not going to be this person’s issue.’”
Scott Williams was also on the practice court. A few months earlier, the 34-year-old veteran had thought he was done with basketball. He had played out his contract with the Denver Nuggets. His back ached. He had won three championships with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Maybe it was time.
While vacationing in Cabo San Lucas with his wife, Williams learned his agent had called. The Suns were interested in signing him to a one-year deal. They wanted to meet with Williams in Los Angeles. Williams suddenly had second thoughts.
At the Beverly Wilshire hotel, Jerry Colangelo and then-coach Frank Johnson pitched Williams on joining the Suns. The Suns had talented guards in Stephon Marbury and Anfernee Hardaway, but they needed a leader, someone who could unite the locker room and mentor Stoudemire.
Williams agreed. He told the Suns he wanted his locker next to Stoudemire’s, something Jordan had done for him when Williams had joined the Bulls in 1990. Williams thought that was pretty cool until he realized all the media surrounding Jordan made it impossible to get to his locker after games. “But I remember sitting next to Michael when the press wasn’t in the room just trying to soak up anything through osmosis as I could,” he said, “not only talent but wisdom.”
As the season started, Williams didn’t know what Phoenix’s plan was for Stoudemire. Johnson brought him off the bench to start, but everyone realized that keeping him there would be a challenge.
“You kind of had to get thrown in the pool,” Williams said. “I don’t want to say sink or swim — obviously, we were going to guide him — but we could see he did pretty good in that damn pool. It was just a matter of taking this super raw talent and trying to work with him on footwork and on balance and his confidence and shooting the mid-range jump shot. But the ability to go up and play at or above the rim — you can’t teach that.”
Tom Gugliotta had seen this before. In 1995, he had been in Minnesota when the Timberwolves drafted a high schooler named Kevin Garnett. He remembered Kevin McHale, the team’s vice president of basketball operations, telling him Garnett could help. The 26-year-old Gugliotta thought: “When? When I’m 35?”
But Garnett proved him wrong. Gugliotta remembers a game against Houston and Hakeem Olajuwon when the rookie produced 17 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots. Stoudemire had similar force. “He had good instincts,” Gugliotta said. “We’d watch him shoot and be like, ‘His shot form is legit. He’s going to get better, but he’s already in a damn good place with his shot.’ And we knew he could get to the basket, just with his big hands and great leaping ability and strength.”
Johnson, the Suns head coach, compared Stoudemire’s explosiveness to Shawn Kemp and his effort to Moses Malone. Then-Nets coach Byron Scott said the rookie had the body of Karl Malone.
In the season’s 10th game, Gugliotta hurt his right foot. Stoudemire took the veteran’s place in the lineup and became the most dominant rookie in the league. On Dec. 30, he battled Garnett in Minnesota and put up 38 points and 14 rebounds. After the game, Marbury was asked to compare Stoudemire with Garnett, then a perennial All-Star in his eighth season.
“He doesn’t even compare to Amar’e,” Marbury said. “It’s two different people. It’s like Michael Jordan and Mario Elie. You all saw Kevin play out of high school and you saw this kid play. He looks like he went to the Army for two years and then came into the NBA. It’s like night and day.”
Garnett gave the rookie credit, but didn’t take Marbury’s bait.
“Son is good,” he said of Stoudemire. “I think everybody out there saw he had a good night. We didn’t underestimate him. He’s been a factor since Day 1.”
Stoudemire played in all 82 games his first season, averaging 13.5 points and 8.8 rebounds. He beat out Yao Ming for NBA Rookie of the Year, the perfect launch point for a high schooler who once dreamed of making the Hall of Fame. Over 14 seasons, Stoudemire would make six All-Star teams and earn All-NBA recognition five times. But his drive and determination were there from the start.
“I’m gonna say this,” Jerry Colangelo said. “Amar’e, you look at his career. You look at some of his achievements. Rookie of the Year. The All-NBA teams. That knee situation set him back and cut short all of the things he might have obtained. He would’ve done more. He was that exceptional. And being as mentally tough as he was, he was on a mission.”
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Doug Haller is a senior writer based in Arizona. He previously worked 13 years at The Arizona Republic, where he covered three Final Fours and four football national championship games. He is a six-time winner of the Arizona Sportswriter of the Year award. You can follow Doug on X @DougHaller.
