Amare was great, no doubt, but the microfracture did get him to work on his jumper quite a bit. He didn't have that before he got hurt. When he did finally return he was able to shoot well from out to 18-20 feet. I remember all of the coverage during that year he was out about how much he was working on his shot because that's one of the things he was able to do physically while rehabbing. Before that he was just an absolute beast in the paint and unstoppable from about 12 feet and in but that jumper opened up his game a lot when he did return. I have no doubt he would have scored close to 30 a game if he never had the microfracture but I think that helped him expand his game some also, it got him to play smarter.
Wish we could have seen him at his peak, without the health issues. Who knows how good he would have been. It's not out of the realm of possibilites that he could have been one of the best PF's in league history. He was so damn good in that Spurs series in Nash's first year back here. Duncan was still in his prime then, on the tail end of it, but he couldn't stop Amare. He couldn't even slow him down much.
You don't hear about microfractures as much as the early 2000's. Do they still use that to treat players? I think Brandon Roy was the last player who had that done and everyone saw how he was robbed of his athleticism and forced out of the league before he was 30.