Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026: Amar’e Stoudemire played above the rim in a way only he could

What sprung to mind, for Mike D’Antoni, was laughing. The feeling of watching Amar’e Stoudemire doing what he could do — what seemingly only he could do — and being overcome by an involuntary physical expression of pleasure.

So many times, I would come to the timeout and just giggle,” Stoudemire’s former head coach told reporters this spring. “The rim is still shaking [after] how hard he just dunked the basketball, and guys are like … they’re stunned. I’m looking like, ‘Oh my gosh.'”

“He was incredible,” D’Antoni said.

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Stoudemire was incredible: a 6-foot-10, 245-pound elevating-and-detonating marvel, a six-time All-Star and five-time All-NBA selection. His journey began in Lake Wales, Florida, in 1982, and will bring him this weekend to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he’ll be enshrined as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026. (As luck would have it, D’Antoni will join him.)

To get from Lake Wales to Springfield … well, that’s something of a miracle.

“This is a small town, but Lincoln Avenue is just like any bad area you’d find in an inner city,” former police officer and Lake Wales High School junior varsity basketball coach Burney Hayes told the New York Times in 2012, after the death of Stoudemire’s older brother, Hazell Jr. “See it, want it, name it, you can have it on Lincoln Avenue. Shoot dice, gambling, drugs, prostitution, all of it. You get caught there, you might never get out.”

Stoudemire grew up in Lake Wales cutting grass with his dad, Hazell Sr., who owned a lawn care company. Hazell Sr. died when Amar’e was just 12 years old after suffering a heart attack. His last words to his son: “The skies are the limit for you.”

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Few men that big have ever soared through the sky so breathtakingly, gotten off the floor so easily, punished the rim so violently. The nickname STAT — an acronym for “Standing Tall and Talented” — seemed apt, but also scarcely seemed to cover it. Even the skies couldn’t limit Amar’e.

Nor, for that matter, could the myriad ground-level concerns that Stoudemire faced throughout tumultuous teenage years that saw him…

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Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2026-08-14 16:13:00

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