Amar’e Stoudemire and the Hall of Fame Class of 2026 pose with their jackets during the Awards Gala.
UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Amar’e Stoudemire showed up for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame media day looking, at age 43, as if he still could play.
Still 6-foot-10, still seemingly at his playing weight of 245 pounds, Stoudemire was decked out in classy casual as he met with reporters, wearing a cap, a hoodie, a pair of shorts from Miami Dade College School of Justice and a surprise on his feet.
A pair of 2026 New York Knicks “NBA Champs” blue-and-orange slides.
Once a Knick, always a Knick? Actually, Stoudemire — who will enter the Hall with the rest of its Class of 2026 in the enshrinement ceremony at Symphony Hall in Springfield, Mass., Saturday night — isn’t just any alumnus. He was part of a minor resurgence 16 years ago, the last before this current iteration started coming together the past few seasons.
When Stoudemire signed a five-year, $100 million contract in 2010 to join the Knicks, he was at the peak of his powers: five-time All-Star, four All-NBA selections in his eight Phoenix seasons and, most important, a 27-year-old free agent choosing to take on the spotlight and the expectations in New York.
Watch the 2026 Basketball Hall of Fame nominees receive their jackets.
Other NBA stars shied away from that role and that market, the lift seen as too heavy. That summer, LeBron James and Chris Bosh went to Miami and Dwyane Wade re-signed there, opting to team up. Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver went to Chicago, already a playoff team. Stoudemire decided to go it alone with the 29-53 Knicks.
“He was the first one really of a certain level who committed,” Mike D’Antoni, who coached Stoudemire both in Phoenix and New York and also gets enshrined Saturday. “Amar’e is not afraid of anything, and he wasn’t afraid of New York. His mindset was, he was going to conquer it.”
Said Stoudemire: “I did embrace it. Going to New York at that time, the team was in a deficit. [One] playoffs in 10 years, no All-Stars … A lot of players did not want to go to New York during that stretch. But me, I loved the challenge. That brings out the best in me.
“Coach D’Antoni was there, so I had a familiar face as coach. I was raised in New York so I wanted to go back to a familiar place. That first year in New York I was able to display my entire game. And we had a great run.”
The Knicks improved by 13 victories to finish .500 and begin a three-year postseason run. Carmelo Anthony leveraged a trade from Denver in February 2011 and was an All-Star the next six seasons. Stoudemire was at his best in his debut New York season, averaging career highs in scoring (25.3) and blocks (1.9) and grabbing 8.2 rebounds to finish ninth in MVP voting.
Injuries soon reared up on him, and Stoudemire missed 123 games while averaging just 10.6 ppg and 5.0 rpg in his final four years with New York, Dallas and Miami. But in his view, there’s a direct line from his choice of the Knicks to what happened two months ago with Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mike Brown and the rest, right down to the slides on his feet Friday.
“I wanted to bring players to New York to experience what I experienced in the city,” Stoudemire said. “We were able to bring in Carmelo and I think the energy of having me there showed the rest of the league, hey, New York can be a destination place.”
It was essential to the destination Stoudemire is celebrating this weekend.
They’re in – who should be next?
Several members of the Class of 2026 had strong feelings about qualified candidates worthy of Hall induction who haven’t yet made it.
— “Marques Johnson,” said Doc Rivers. “For me, I remember him being unguardable. Playing with Dominque [Wilkins], when we played Milwaukee, I would hear ‘switch’ more than normal.”
In other words, Wilkins called for help defensively against the Bucks’ talented small forward, a five-time All-Star and 20.1 ppg scorer.
“Marques and Bernard King were two of the toughest guys in the open court to ever play.”
— Referee Joey Crawford stuck to the game officials category and suggested Steve Javie, his longtime colleague and best friend. “I believe as a referee you have to have judgment, you have to have presence on the floor and you have to have rules knowledge,” Crawford said. “I didn’t know many who had all three. Steve Javie is the only guy I know who did.
“I did not have that presence – I used to go cuckoo out there. Steve would go cuckoo, too, but very calmly.”
— Chamique Holdsclaw pounced on the question. “This is a big one: Cappie Pondexter,” she said. “She won two [WNBA] championships, played a great style, and what she and Diana [Taurasi] did as a tandem in Phoenix was unbelievable. I will [nominate] her – somebody nominated me, so I’ve got to pay it forward.”
Pondexter, a 5-foot-9 guard from Rutgers, was a seven-time All-Star in 13 seasons. She was Finals MVP in 2007 and was voted in 2011 as one of the WNBA’s Top 15 players ever. She was enshrined in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame last year but so far, not in the Springfield shrine.
— D’Antoni named a coach who, with a 945-1,017 record, ranks 14th all time in victories and is the only one in the top 15 who hasn’t been enshrined. “Dick Motta has been deserving for years,” D’Antoni said of the Bulls, Mavericks, Wizards and Kings coach who reached the Finals twice with Washington, winning the title in 1978.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
