What are the differences if any when building around these two duos? With Yao and Tmac we wanted shooters and an athletic PF who could also shoot. I wonder if we are following the same plan.
Clyde/Hakeem TMac/Yao James/Dwight Rockets love their SG's and C's. Shooters outside and a great center inside.
Yeah, I think it's pretty much the same plan. We want a bunch of players with two qualities: 1. can defend well, 2. can hit a long jumper. Don't need a ton of shot creators. Though, one or two wouldn't hurt I suppose. Howard is certainly weaker offensively than Hakeem/Yao.
But Howard is better than Yao defensively and rebounding. Also fronting him wouldn't be his kryptonite
The lesson we learned? DO NOT surround these guys with one-dimensional players. You need talent that can adapt to injuries and keep the offense going in the event one of your superstars goes down.
Dwight's offense is based on athleticism and power compared to the additional finesse and range that Yao/Hakeem had, I watched last season's highlights of Dwight and saw some of the moves he learned from those three days he trained with Hakeem which looks very promising. hopefully Dwight will expand his game as He'll be with mchale and hopefully more sessions with hakeem!
The biggest difference imo is the gm. We have seen over the last few years that morey is elite at getting role players, but struggled with acquiring stars. Now that we have our stars, I feel that the flood gates are open and morey will do work and do what we couldn't with yao/tmac (except the artest year).
We need a point guard like Rondo or a PF like K-Love! If we can't get those guys Jarrett Jack or Ryan Anderson works just fine!