FROM RAW TO RARE

Today the Dallas Mavericks, tomorrow the world.

In a league where Greek gods’ bodies come standard, Amare Stoudemire stood out from the day he arrived, 6 feet 10 inches and 233 pounds with a chiseled frame that tapered from wide shoulders to a 32-inch waist. He had a vertical leap of 38 inches.

He was 19 years old, though, and had some things to learn.

“He couldn’t shoot,” says his coach with the Phoenix Suns, Mike D’Antoni. “Couldn’t play defense. Other than that, he was pretty good.”

But then, basketball was always the least of Stoudemire’s problems. His mother and his older brother were in and out of jail. Hotly pursued but barely coached, he lived with a succession of guardians with issues of their own, attending six high schools and doing so poorly that he played only one full season.

As an NBA rookie, his game was simple: He tried to dunk on everyone. And when that didn’t work, he got the ball back and tried to dunk on them again. The only high school player in the 2002 draft, he was the first to be rookie of the year. Not even Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady did that.

“I have seen the future of the NBA,” Shaquille O’Neal said at the 2003 All-Star game, “and his name is Amare Stoudemire.”

Then something happened not even the Suns expected. Stoudemire started learning the game, not little by little, as they hoped, but a lot by a lot.

Along with his physical attributes, and despite a background that scared off half the league, he had tremendous intangibles. He wanted to be, as he recently put it, “a legend.” He was coachable and he worked.

“He’s a sponge,” D’Antoni said. “It’s just amazing how quick he picks things up and can integrate it into his game. You teach him one thing and it’s like it’s already been there for years.

“Like his shooting -- it literally took him a month, where it would take guys years or they would never get it.”

Stoudemire’s scoring average jumped from 13.5 as a rookie to 20.6 in the anonymity of his second season, when the Suns went 29-53.

He bumped it again, to 26.0, as the Suns finished this regular season with the best record in the NBA, 62-20. In the Dallas series he’s averaging 30.5 points and 12.8 rebounds (against a career average of 8.9.) Everyone could be in real trouble now.

Diamond in the Rough

Here are two more fun facts (at least if you’re a Sun fan):

Despite appearances, Stoudemire isn’t 6-10. At the 2002 pre-draft camp in Chicago, he was measured at 6-8 1/2 in his stocking feet.

And he was drafted ninth, after Houston took Yao Ming, Chicago took Jay Williams, Golden State took Mike Dunleavy Jr., Memphis took Drew Gooden, Denver took Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Cleveland took DaJuan Wagner, the New York Knicks traded their pick to Denver for Antonio McDyess and the Nuggets took Nene Hilario and the Clippers took Chris Wilcox.

The concern was Stoudemire’s background. Topsy-turvy childhoods among basketball prodigies in disadvantaged circumstances are all too common, but even among those his was sobering.

As chronicled when he was 18 by HBO’s “Real Sports,” his father, a saxophonist, died when he was 12. His mother was in and out of jail on convictions of grand theft, forgery, prostitution and check fraud. His older brother was serving a three-to-nine-year sentence for sexual assault and selling drugs.

Amare started high school in his hometown, Lake Wales, Fla., outside Orlando. A year later, he transferred to Mount Zion Academy in Durham, N.C., where McGrady, who was from nearby Auburndale, had gone in his senior year to get famous.

It didn’t work out as well for Stoudemire. Midway through his sophomore year, Coach Joel Hopkins left with his entire team and started a new school, Emmanuel Christian Academy. Emmanuel Christian was ranked as a national power before Stoudemire’s junior year but folded before the season.

Stoudemire returned to Florida, moved in with Travis King, the coach of his summer AAU team, and re-enrolled at Mount Zion. But soon he left again, transferring to West Orange High, which was close to home, sitting out his junior year and moving in with a man who was later jailed on a bribery conviction.

An acquaintance took Stoudemire to the 2001 Nike summer camp in Indianapolis and handed out press packets with pictures and newspaper clippings about Amare, who was becoming, depending on whom you listened to, a prep legend or a cautionary tale.

Stoudemire then transferred to Cypress Creek High in western Orange County, where he became the Florida player of the year as a senior and NBA scouts started showing up.

The pros were split, impressed by Stoudemire’s natural ability, concerned about his “skill set” and terrified of his background. Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry, the high school players who had gone 1-2-4 in the 2001 draft, were lost as rookies. Projected as a top pick, Stoudemire’s stock was tumbling when he came to Phoenix to work out.

Owner Jerry Colangelo had turned around on high school players in 1996 when the Suns worked Bryant out. However, Jerry West beat them to him, trading Vlade Divac for Charlotte’s No. 13 pick while Phoenix tried in vain to get the Warriors to swap their No. 11 for the Suns’ No. 15.

Stoudemire not only had other-worldly physical talent, but also poise. Raw as he was, he was confident. Checkered as his background was, he was soft-spoken and respectful.

Colangelo saw another Bryant, all his own.

“He may have been raw, but you don’t see many raw guys like that,” Colangelo says. “He just stood out like a diamond. And quite honestly, when I saw him, I was amazed. Looking at his videotape and seeing him live ... it was as much his persona. Forget his physical attributes -- yeah, he could run, jump. ...

“And really, what I came to conclude was, after all that he had gone through? The fact that he was still standing was a heck of a thing, let alone his presence. And so my opinion was, it was unlimited. Unlimited.”

Colangelo called Stoudemire’s agent and said he wanted Amare, period. The catch was, he couldn’t work out for anyone else or he wouldn’t be there when the Suns drafted at No. 9.

Stoudemire then came down with what he still calls a shoulder injury.

“So Amare disappeared,” Colangelo says. “He didn’t go to any other camps. And the day before the draft, the Clippers, who were eighth, call and they say, ‘We know you guys hid him out.’

“We didn’t hide anybody out. If he chose not to go to any other workouts, that’s his decision.

“And they said, ‘We’re going to take him.’

“ ‘Take him. You’re drafting ahead of us.’

“They took Wilcox and he was still there at nine.”

Colangelo, who spent 34 years as coach, general manager and owner of the Suns watching a parade of stars go to the Lakers, who in 1969 lost a coin toss for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and wound up with Neal Walk, finally bagged the prize.

Of course, even Colangelo didn’t realize what was in the box.

Building the Perfect Beast

“I played with Corey Maggette for four years. He’s unbelievable athletically. You look at Shawn [Marion], LeBron [James], J.R. Smith, a ton of guys. That’s a hard call. He [Stoudemire] is up there. For a big guy? He’s by far the best athlete.”

Teammate

Quentin Richardson

The next great power forward has turned into ... the next great center?

Stoudemire was already going up like a rocket before this season when Steve Nash and Richardson arrived and D’Antoni thought about going small, with Amare at center and the 6-7 Marion at power forward. “It wasn’t like he told me I was going to be a center,” Stoudemire says. “He asked me was it cool, and I was like, ‘Yeah, but you know I’m not a center. As long as we know that.’ ”

The Suns then went from 29 wins to 62 with the highest-scoring offense in 10 years. O’Neal had moved over to the Eastern Conference and, as if to show how much things had changed, Dallas’ Erick Dampier was billing himself as “the best center in the West.”

Stoudemire didn’t stay up nights worrying about Dampier, Jerome James, Rasho Nesterovic, et al. On offense, with Richardson, Joe Johnson and Marion camped out on the arc, the middle of the floor open and Nash getting him the ball all night, opposing centers could barely find Amare, much less guard him.

Nevertheless, even a triumphant season takes its toll, and Stoudemire still isn’t sure about being a center.

“That’s part of negotiations that will carry on this summer,” he says. “We’re going to discuss some things, but that’s behind closed doors. I want to have a long, successful career. I don’t want to be a guy that has four great years and then injuries take over.”

The Suns are counting on signing him to an extension this summer so he can be whatever he wants, from president to the team mascot. They hope to persuade him to stay at center but understand the realities of the situation.

“Probably a lot of groveling will be involved,” D’Antoni says.

At whatever position, Stoudemire is already special. Vince Carter’s dunks may be more spectacular than Stoudemire’s tomahawks, but Amare gets more.

“There are a lot of guys fast and strong or strong and fast,” D’Antoni says. “But his balance and how he can stop on a dime, change directions and go right into you, I haven’t seen that.”

Maybe that’s why Stoudemire seems to get all the loose balls he’s near. At a key point in Game 3 at Dallas, he picked one up in the lane and tomahawked it. Dallas color commentator Bob Ortegel, a former college coach, said it looked like the five Mavericks were forming “a ring of honor around him.”

This isn’t just a dunk show any more. Stoudemire has moved his shooting range back to the free-throw line and D’Antoni says he’s one of the Suns’ best three-point shooters in practice.

“He just doesn’t have the confidence and I don’t have the credibility yet to let him do it or I’ll get fired,” D’Antoni says. “But next year, you’ll see him opening it up a little bit more.”

Actually, Stoudemire started opening it up at the All-Star break. At that point, he had tried 23 three-pointers in his career and made three. In the last 10 weeks of the season, he went three for seven.

“He’s just young, you know what I’m saying?” Richardson says. “He’s young and he’s doing all this. I mean, you’ve got to think about it, everything he does, he does on raw ability. He doesn’t really have a post game yet. He’s getting his jump shot down, but as far as fundamentals, he doesn’t really have those. He just goes around and wants to go through people and over people.

“So, I mean, the thing about it is, most guys, once they get 26 or 27, they start maturing and learning how to play the game and at that point, nobody’s going to do nothing with him.”

Stoudemire won’t be 26 for four years. If the best is yet to come, look out.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Rising Sun

Amare Stoudemire, the ninth pick in the 2002 draft, has nearly doubled his scoring average from his rookie season to his third. How Stoudemire’s three seasons compare with the first three of other recent All-Stars who went from high school to the NBA.

*--* 1ST 2ND 3RD Amare Stoudemire 13.5 20.6 26.0 Rashard Lewis 2.4 8.2 14.8 Tracy McGrady 7.0 9.3 15.4 Kobe Bryant 7.6 15.4 19.9 Jermaine O’Neal 4.1 4.5 2.5 Kevin Garnett 10.4 17.0 18.5

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Source: NBA.com