The short answer? No.
The East’s talent may be depleted compared to the West, but it still has plenty of talented bodies in the front court that Amar’e would have to beat out – which seems highly unlikely.
Not to mention that two big men on his team (Whiteside and Bosh) are going to be much more involved than him, and he’ll then have to compete with McRoberts, Haslem, and Birdman for minutes off of the bench.
Despite the looks of it, though, Stoudemire believes he can return to form. Via ProBasketballTalk,
“Just four years ago I was an MVP candidate and an All-Star,” Stoudemire said. “I feel like I can still get back to that All-Star level of play. If I can achieve that, then that’s going to help the team in its entirety. … I will accept whatever the role is.”
“Stay tuned,” Stoudemire said. “At this point, I don’t know what I’m going to bring. My goal is to become a better player than I was last year, expand on what I did last year. I have a lot of skill set left in this body and I want to show that.”
To be a professional athlete you have to have an insane amount of confidence in yourself. But that doesn’t mean you have to take that confidence to the media and, in turn, remind everyone how far you’ve fallen from your peak just 4 years ago.
It’d be wise to just accept whatever role is given to you off of the bench and keep on quietly cashing those checks.
Who knows, though? Amar’e could turn it around and surprise us all this season, I just wouldn’t bet on it. What do you think?