NBA Star captain of the New York Knicks Amar'e Stoudemire hopes to inspire young adults with his recently launched novel, "Slam Dunk."

Amar'e Stoudemire's "Slam Dunk" is about an 11-year-old basketball player who wants badly to learn how to dunk. The boy is actually Stoudemire's character and is also nicknamed "STAT", meaning "Stand Tall and Talented." Through the book, Stoudemire hopes to inspire young adults.

Discussing his childhood with a reporter from NPR, the basketball players says, "My father was a hard-working man, and I grew up with him. And my friends, I was very close to all my friends. And all this is also inside the book series. My brother ... he taught me basketball moves. Book reports [were] very important, I had to turn in and make sure my father - make sure he understood I was making the proper grades. But yeah, I mean, my childhood definitely [had] some challenges, but all in all it was a great success and it was a lot of fun."

Talking about the "lessons to be learnt" from his book, Stoudemire reveals "[It's] very, very important for the young boys to understand that being smart is very cool and that there's nothing wrong with being smart and intelligent. And two, for all the athletes, for most of the young boys who love to play sports, there's going to be challenges also, whether it's injury, whether it's schoolwork, whether its friends or peer pressure. You have to surround yourself [with] positive friends to have a successful start to your early career."

Explaining why he writers specially for young writers, he says, "A lot of young boys are starting to shy away from reading as if it's not cool, so I wanted to express ... how important reading really is to them. I remember when I was their age, going to the bookstore I went to, the first book that had any type of athlete on the book - whether it was Jackie Robinson or whether it was Bill Russell or what have you - whatever book I saw that had an athlete on it, you know, I bought that book and I read that book, and then that started to spark my mind to want to read more, so I want that same effect to continue on."