A little help here guys. I have a cousin who is a gigantic Lakers fan (who lives in TN...) who is constantly letting me know what a p***y or how soft Dwight Howard is. Anytime anything is mentioned in a negative light about D12 you can bet he is messaging me about it, trying to goad me into some kind of argument. What's funny is when Dwight decided to come to Houston he hit me with "Man... ya'll are going to be so good now. I wish he stayed in LA, but at least your team got him." Now Howard is worthless to him, apparently. Admittedly, I can't say I paid much attention to Dwight's career prior to him coming to Houston. The only memories of Dwight I have pre-Rockets era is when he would go up against The Rockets, and typically dominate our front court every game. I remember being blow away by how he dominated Omer on the glass in our match ups while he was in LA. After watching Omer typically overpower and outmaneuver whoever his match up was, Dwight seemed to handle him like he was a child. I was impressed. Howard is definitely a little too happy on the court for my liking, as I would prefer he had a little bit of a mean streak to him but, hey.... that's just not who he is as a person. I think he takes the game seriously, and with the exception of letting some dunks go unchallenged, I see a lot of hustle and ferocity out of him while on defense. He simply tries to block and rebound everything. I'm just failing to realize how he is painted as some kind of soft wuss in the media and by seemingly a lot of his peers. What am I missing here? Why do the media and most casual NBA fans hate this guy so much?
I really don't know either. I think it comes from Dwight sitting out some games with the Lakers and Kobe basically calling him out and telling him to man up.
I don't think he's soft, but I do have to say he was last night. Why does he struggle so much against OKC and more specifically Adams? And the same against the clips.
Because they are big, strong, and athletic. His physical advantages disappear, so he has a much tougher time.
This couldn't be further from the truth, Yao routinely dominated Howard, the match ups were never close That being said, the "soft" label makes no sense to me. I don't think anyone who has won defensive player of the year (let alone multiple times) can be considered soft
I understand that. I also understand that the Lakers fan base is gigantic and the media bias to cater to them is strong as well. But this sentiment seems to be shared across the entire fan base of the NBA. If he sat out some games as a Laker... whatever. That doesn't seem to be enough for him to garner this much hate. The dude clearly tried to play that whole season while injured. Nowhere near 100%. Their damn owner is on record as saying as much. I still just don't get it.
I meant more or less "recent matchups" that's my mistake. I rarely got to watch Yao play as I was living out of state for most of his good years here. Only got to see one season of good Yao right before he got injured. And I really don't recall how Yao performed against him. I'd expect Yao to dominate anyone.
He's mentally soft. It's why he sucks at the free throw line, gets stupid technicals, goal tends all the time, etc.
The reason he's called soft is because he goofs off a little too much. People don't take him seriously because they think of him as a comedian. It's up to Dwight to break someone's nose one good time. I'd live with the suspension
People hate Dwight Howard and say things that don't really make logical sense just so that they can express their hatred.
Shaq is taller and probably has what, 80 pounds on the guy? I also feel like the NBA is in a different place now. The refs blow their whistles anytime Dwight overpowers anyone.
Howard left LA to join the Houston rockets, of course LA fans will find a way to say some stupid negative things to him. That is very normal.
Exactly. Does everyone forget how many charge calls Dwight got blown on him in his first year here because everyone just flopped when he powered through?
Howard is viewed as soft because he does all that dancing & clowning before & during games. He is simply viewed as being a big clown. He needs to leave the dancing to the kids and grow up a little bit. There is nothing wrong with having fun sometimes, but to have everyone circle around you so you can perform a dance routine before every game is ridiculous in my opinion.
He's trying to create the college team culture. You know the same methodology LeBron took with his first stint on the Cavs where he took a team full of crappy role players to the finals? Or should Dwight go Kobe mode and just freeze everyone on his team out and take half the shots for his team all the while giving his teammates deathstares mid game and taking cheap shots at his teammates and coaches in post-game interviews?
But why does being a happy person mean you're soft? He goes hard in the paint. I've seen it game after game. One has to be mean mugging all the time in order to not be soft? I'm looking for on court evidence to Howard being soft. He seems to play hard to me. Makes some dumb mistakes sometimes and is kind of a disaster offensively... but truly, the effort is there.