It’s been a rough week, Suns fans. Our team stinks at the moment. They stink bad. They stink real bad. In this week’s Pick and Roll, Steve Fan and I once again channel our inner Sam Smith to pull an idea out of thin air. We jump on the Amare Stoudemire dogpile and send him to the bench in an effort to shake things up and light a fire under the Suns.
This Hurts Me More than You, Amare – Mark McLane
We all know Amare Stoudemire can be a dominant player. He’s a force with the ball in his hands and at times, unguardable. Problem is, he doesn’t have the ball these days as much as he would like. A mountain of a man on the low block has been the focal point of the offense, and Amare has been relegated to second fiddle.
21 points and 8 rebounds a game is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a player the offense no longer runs through. However, with the focus changing from Amare to Shaq on the offensive end, Stoudemire’s seems to be shifting his focus as well.
To what, I don’t know. Perhaps a new nickname or another way to spell his first name. What he isn’t doing is helping his team win in other ways, by bringing focus to playing solid defense and rebounding the basketball. There are times in the game when Amare looks worse than lost, he seems disinterested.
Mental breakdowns can be part of the game, no matter how great the player, but a lack of effort and focus is inexcusable. There could be much more going on in Stoudemire’s head than frustration in waiting for Shaq to make a move to the hoop or dish to a cutter or back to the perimeter. Whatever it may be, the job for Coach Porter and Steve Kerr is to find a solution, and fast.
A trip to the bench wouldn’t hurt.
I realize this idea is ludicrous, but that’s the point of today’s harebrained exercise. Ignore the problems with the suggestion (in the interest of keeping you awake, I’ll skip them) and realize the Suns may very well need to take a look at the absurd. There’s no more drastic move than asking your franchise player to make a sacrifice and come off the bench. For a suddenly mediocre team, a shakeup of such epic proportions can’t exactly make things any worse.
Lou “Starter” Amundson – Steve Fan
It’s time for a change Suns Nation! Even in the small matter of the Suns lineup. It’s time to bring new energy to the starting lineup and add some raw power off the bench. At Forward, no. 17, from UNLV, Louuuuuuu Amundson!
It’s time to start Louis Amoudson and use Stoudemire as the sixth man.
“I am Lou Amundson and this is my Blog!” With these simple words Lou began his blogger career. “I am a truly laid back dude from Boulder, CO, who loves his mom, works hard” continued the Man Behind the Ponytail.
Stoudemire could be our very own Manu Ginobili.
Once opponents believe to have settled down on defense, say after 6-7 minutes of the game: BANG! Here comes STAT with his “gorilla game.” It won’t change everything in terms of playing time (Lou will play 15-20 minutes and Stoudemire will still get his 35) but as an added bonus, it could prevent some of Stoudemire’s frequent foul trouble.
Will Stoudemire like it? Not a chance, but it could give him some rage, a little bit of that aggressive attitude on court the Suns need. We need an angry Amaré, not a frustrated player trying to affirm his leadership on a team with Shaq and Nash.
Amundson is more than adequate to start for an NBA team, check his stats per 48-minutes. In the 10 games he played in January, averaging 19 minutes per game, Lou is scoring 6 points and grabbing 5.5 rebounds a night. Yes, his shooting percentages are a bit low, but he’s not here to score.
He’ll be fired up by the chance to start and should be pretty good alongside the Big Cactus. He creates havoc on the court, and nobody is better in basketball anarchy than Steve and Shaq.
Why not? It’s time for a change. The Suns need to do something to change the course of a season that I believe is going nowhere.
In his new blog I mentioned previously, Lou even suggested some nicknames for himself: “Lou Skywalker, Thor, and of course, Lightning Lou”. Well, Lou, if you don’t mind, I’ll just call you “Starter”.
