Just how effective can Stoudemire be? (USATSI)
Just how effective can Amar'e Stoudemire be? (USATSI)

Five years ago, Amar'e Stoudemire was the big get for the New York Knicks. After chasing LeBron James and failing to sign him, Stoudemire was their big ticket item in free agency after inking him to a five-year, $99.7 million contract in the summer of 2010. Stoudemire was phenomenal right away and had the Knicks as one of the more competitive teams in the East. He was even garnering some rumblings about being an MVP candidate as he dominated the month of December.

Two months later, he was teamed up with Carmelo Anthony as the Knicks were supposedly building a Big Three of their own. The next two seasons, the knee injuries allowed him to play in only 76 of the 148 games. The story for Stoudemire from then on was more about how little room his contract gave the Knicks as they hoped to get out of it rather than how much he was bolstering the roster. It's been four years since Stoudemire was so highly regarded and injury free. Now as he signs up for a reserve role with the Miami Heat this season, he thinks he can get back to that All-Star level of play. From the Associated Press:

But he's played in only 200 games (out of a possible 312) in the four years since, and still isn't entirely certain what his role will be with the Heat.

"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."

Clearly, Stoudemire doesn't think he can be an All-Star again in this league, right? This is more about him being able to be an effective player who the defense has to worry about at all times when he's on the floor. And if he can perform at that "All-Star level" when he's on the floor for the Heat, it will be within the role defined for him by Erik Spoelstra and make that second unit for Miami really difficult to defend.

The Heat have Chris Bosh and Hassan Whiteside as their two starting big men. Josh McRoberts, Udonis Haslem, and Chris Andersen will join Stoudemire as the big man rotation off the bench. The Heat believe in their program for bringing injured veterans back to a contributing level and are hoping to do for Stoudemire what they did for Rashard Lewis and couldn't do for Danny Granger. If they can make him a consistent weapon off the bench, few big men can score like Stoudemire.

Even in his struggles last season, he averaged 12 points on 54.3 percent from the field in 24 minutes for the Knicks and was a more efficient scorer after he was waived by New York and signed with the Dallas Mavericks. He scored 10.8 points in 16.5 minutes on 58.1 percent from the field for Dallas. If he can bring that kind of production in a bit of an extended role and not kill the Heat's second-unit defense, it'll be a success story for Miami.

(H/T - ProBasketballTalk)