Amar’e Stoudemire, alone in his dingy one-bedroom apartment, sat down at his rickety desk. Even this small amount of movement caused him to wince in pain and clutch his back. The sand in his life’s hourglass was quickly running down to nothing, and there was important business to attend to.
“Dear Steve,” he wrote. “I hope this letter finds you well.”
Amar’e shook his head and crossed out those words. He knew perfectly well that Steve’s body was just as broken as his own, perhaps even more so. To insinuate otherwise would be insensitive.
“Dear Steve,
It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Sometimes I look at the calendar and wonder where all the time has escaped to. I guess basketball just doesn’t mean as much when you’re not playing it with your favorite teammate.”
Those words, too, were crossed out, and the paper they resided on was crumpled. Amar’e, frustrated with his subpar letter-writing ability, decided to just write what was on his mind.
“Steve,
I’m not going to dance around the issue. We need to team up for one last run at the championship. You’ve got one season left at most, and the Stoudemire-Nash combination was unstoppable back in the day. We can bring back that glory. The magic is still there.
That team with Q-Rich, JJ, and Matrix was a sight to behold. That team deserved to win it all. We had the pieces, the coach, the chemistry. But we can recreate those guys’ impact with the guys you have in LA.
I’m trying to get traded to the Lakers, if you haven’t figured it out. You gotta talk with your ownership over there to convince them that taking on my contract is worth it. Tell them that STAT is back and he’s done punching fire extinguishers.
We’re both hall-of-famers, man. But a ring on the finger would make the journey complete. If we both train hard in the off-season, there’s no reason we can’t turn the dial back to 2005 and dominate the hardwood once more. Your savvy playmaking, my lithe explosiveness – these things are still there, waiting to be utilized.
Gotta go now. My knees are killing me.
-Amar’e”
Setting down his pen, Amar’e saw that his letter was stained with drops. He looked up at his chronically-leaky ceiling for signs of dripping water. Not finding any, Amar’e realized that he was crying.