Raising Arizona

Amare started to dream of playing basketball professionally as a 14-year-old, when he shot up to 6'6". As the Stoudemire brothers picked their way through the drug-infested neighborhood to the playground in Lake Wales, Fla., Hazell Jr.—who, according to Amare, is now 6'10" and 315 pounds—kept the dealers at bay. "He'd tell them, 'Don't talk to my brother; he's going to the court to play basketball,' " says Amare. "And they never bothered me." Perhaps they, too, recognized the kid's talent: At Amare's first AAU tournament he was named MVP. "I knew I was good," he says, "because I was the only 14-year-old who could dunk backward."

But Stoudemire's itinerant high school career cost him valuable playing time. His freshman season at Lake Wales High was cut short by academic ineligibility. The following year he joined coach Joel Hopkins's squad at Mount Zion Academy in Durham, N.C., an Adidas-sponsored juggernaut that McGrady had played for before jumping to the NBA. Midway through the year Hopkins started a rival school, Emmanuel Christian Academy, in the basement of a Durham office building and spirited away the Mount Zion team to serve as his student body. "Hopkins made us feel like it was a very good thing," Stoudemire told HBO. Even though Emmanuel was considered a national power going into the next year, the school folded before the team played a game.

Stoudemire returned to Florida, where his life became even more tumultuous. He started living with Travis King, a coach on the summer basketball circuit; attended summer school at Dr. Phillips High in Orlando before his junior year; briefly reenrolled at Mount Zion, where, Stoudemire claims, his transcripts had been doctored to keep him from playing at another school (the school's athletic director, Don Fozard Jr., declines to comment); sat out a year at West Orange (Fla.) High for academic ineligibility stemming from the Mount Zion transcripts; learned that Nike rep George Raveling had given Carrie $100 while she was in jail; fell out with King and came under the influence of the Reverend Bill Williams, who soon after claiming to be Amare's legal guardian entered prison, for the fourth time, on a bribery conviction; enlisted the help of publicist Marc Little, a colleague of Williams's, who accompanied Stoudemire to the 2001 Nike summer camp in Indianapolis, where he handed out glossy pictures and press clippings to the media; and committed to Memphis. Had Stoudemire honored that commitment, his association with Little and the money Raveling had given his mother would have certainly set the NCAA hounds a-baying. But after a senior season at Cypress Creek High during which he averaged 29 points, 15 rebounds and six blocks and was named Florida's Mr. Basketball, few believed college was in his future.

"I never had a doubt that I would make it to the NBA, even when I wasn't playing," says Stoudemire. "I always stayed focused because my family was going bad, and I wanted to be able to take care of them."

After signing a three-year, $5.7 million contract, he can do exactly that. He owns a house and a Cadillac Escalade, and when Carrie was recently released after 19 days in a Bartow, Fla., jail for a parole violation, he bought her a Mercedes and settled her and his 14-year-old brother, Marwan, into a rented house near him in Phoenix. Though the presence of Carrie has some people close to Amare nervous, he's happy to have her around. "It feels like home now," he says. "It feels like it used to be. A lot of people think I grew up with just my brother and me, but mom was there even when she wasn't. We had a good household."

Last week, in the Suns' 88-81 victory over the Trail Blazers in Portland, Stoudemire struggled against double teams and had just four points and six rebounds. "I'm going to have to adjust," he said, donning a black sweat suit and a black knit cap. "I've been trying to overpower everything. It's time to break out my finesse game." In other words, more surprises await.

Stoudemire then left the locker room and headed for a team bus surrounded by fans. He stopped to sign autographs, a velour-clad figure standing tall and talented.