Advertisement

Amar’e Stoudemire offers sneak peek at what it’s like to work with Hakeem Olajuwon (VIDEO)

Excited for Team USA's quest for gold in London? Join the BDL crew at 3:45 p.m. for a live chat during Friday's semifinal matchup with Argentina. We'll be cracking jokes, sharing observations, taking questions and talking about the game with fans like you. You can participate in the chat here at BDL or over at Y! Olympics blog Fourth-Place Medal, and don't forget to follow @YahooBDL for your daily NBA fix.

Thanks to Amar'e Stoudemire's social media presence — because, as we've seen, he's a social media guru — we now have some idea what the mystical religious experience of a workout with legendary post-play sherpa Hakeem Olajuwon at his personal Houston gym actually looks like.

Lots of spinning, mostly. In, um, ambitious shorts. (Not that Amar'e has anything to be ashamed of when it comes to flashing a little skin.) While a shirtless JaVale McGee sort of lingers in the background. Y'know, just like you expected it'd be.

I'll be honest, shirtless JaVale + orange-clad Hakeem + all that spinning kind of makes me feel like Hakeem's gym is basketball's version of The Black Lodge. Here's hoping that the version of Stoudemire who comes back to the New York Knicks in the fall is not only more adept at playing with his back to the basket on the right and left blocks, but also is not a soul-drained doppelganger hell-bent on introducing unfathomable evil into the world. (Unless, of course, that "unfathomable evil" is introduced via counters and pivots that lead to high-percentage looks for the Knicks. In which case, introduce away, STAT!)

"It's really like being a student right now, just studying the game," Stoudemire said. "Dream has so many moves, man — it's pretty much a training camp mentality, in early August."

It remains to be seen how many other players will rock Daisy Dukes when training camp starts, but I guess when you pay $100,000, you can wear pretty much whatever you damn well please. Considering how fluid, sharp and quick Stoudemire looks here, he might want to carry the style over into the season. If STAT can rekindle the fire of his MVP-caliber 2010 first half, dudes all over New York'll showing thigh.

Hat-tip to Dime.