he has one good move, that hook shot going to his left, and a decent baseline spin, other than that his moves are horrible and he turns it over a ton for a center, his peak was in 2009 when he took Orlando to the finals
Rockets play better when they do a lot of pick and rolls. If the low post ain't working, Dwight needs to recognize it and do what's best for the team. There's a reason why the Rockets swept the Bulls last year with Asik.
The head coach's responsibility is to recognize this very thing, but our HC cannot. That's why he won't be here for much longer.
Blame Mchale right ?! they sold Howard on post ups to get him to come here & still ride with him when doing bad nothing wrong with that, blame Morey if u mad
If we can give his hands to Asik, that might not be the case anymore. At this point of time, Asik's game is better than Dwight except when dunking the ball.
Honestly at this point Howard's post game is not going to get better. He just doesn't have the handles/finesse for it, which is why he turns the ball over so often. Blake Griffin was able to improve his post game immensely, but the difference is Blake has extremely good handles for a big, he can dribble like a guard. He also has a lot more finesse and is not as "stiff" as Dwight. Feeding Howard in the post is NOT what this team should be doing. It slows down the pace of the game, lets defenders get set. The team should be running and gunning, and Dwight has the athleticism to do just that. Just seems asinine that the entire offensive philosophy is being abandoned just to appease Dwight. If he was Hakeem I'd say it makes sense but he's obviously not. 7 TOs today.
Keep in mind that those rankings are relative to other teams playing the same type of play. However, the Rockets play certain types of plays more than others - especially the spot-up - and those tend to be more efficient, which is why they've managed to maintain a #5 offense overall despite ranking equal or lower (sometimes much lower) individually in all of their most common plays. Take an example: Say our team scores 1 per shot A, and 0.7 per shot B. Another team scores 1.05 per shot A, and 0.75 per shot B. We're ranked lower than the other team for both shots. However, if 2/3 of our shots are A; and only 1/3 of the opponent shots are B, we end up with a PPP of 0.9 vs the opponent's 0.85. One could even argue that individual rankings are nonsensical when there is such a difference between number of plays run per team. Some teams draw their offense around plays like iso or post-up; whereas the Rockets rely on those plays only when the defense is too tight and the in late shot-clock situations. Thus, when we do use those plays, we tend to be a in a pretty bad situation already, and thus the PPP is lower. It doesn't mean that we aren't good at those plays in a half-court situation relative to other teams. Basically, without randomization between different types of plays, PPP statistics categorized by play selection is not a reliable indicator of how good we are at running those plays. And basketball decisions are not random.
I'm not a fan Howard's in the post, but this is an exaggeration. Howard's still a great defensive center and an amazing roll man and offensive rebounder, and he's worth every penny we're paying him if that's all he does. I just want to see him getting maybe 5 post-ups a game instead of the 10 he's been getting. There's a reason post play is dying in the NBA, you need to have a truly great post player to make it efficient. Howard has shown signs that he might still be a competent post player, but I think he's clearly not great enough to warrant the amount of touches he's been getting.
Howard is a better rim protector but Asik is the far superior PnR defender. Asik also sets MUCH better screens. Howard's screens are weak and aren't very effective in freeing up the ball handler. As far as offensive rebounding goes, Asik is just as good. He actually averaged more than Dwight in that category last season. The only really huge upgrade with Dwight is finishing ability around the rim.
I chose those 4 because it is the 4 types of plays the Rockets run the most often. That was my point. The plays the Rockets run the most often result in low rankings relative to other teams. It's the transition offense that gets the Rockets their high overall ranking. But in the playoffs, I bet they are going to have a much more difficult time scoring in transition because teams are going to emphasize shutting down their fast break and make them play in the half court.
In terms of true post play - yeah, he's a rookie. He's never been schooled in how to be a post player because he used to just depend on athleticism. The fact that he doesn't have any mid-range game is probably the thing that will prevent him from ever being a dominant post-player. No great post player completely relied on getting deep. They all had at the very least a 10 foot baseline J. I think Howard needs to develop that shot to be a legit post threat against good teams.
I honestly believe this team could have been just as good if not better this season without Dwight. Let's compare Dwight this season vs Asik last season Asik: 10.1 PPG on 7.5 FGA 11.7 RPG 1.1 Blocks 2.1 TO Dwight: 18.7 PPG on 11.6 FGA 12.4 RPG 1.8 Blocks 3.3 TO So with Dwight you're getting 8.6 more points per game on 4 more shot attempts, .7 more blocks, .7 more rebounds and 1.2 more turnovers. Defensively they are a wash imo only Asik sets harder screens which is beneficial for the perimeter players. Dwight's 8.6 PPG and 4 shots per game would be distributed to other players as Rockets had no trouble scoring and still averaged a ton of points per game last season. Asik eats up much fewer possessions and the run-and-gun would be more effective.
Cool, so what would've happened if Asik ever got into foul trouble or got injured? OH WAIT, we already saw that last year and we were a joke on defense. Please explain how last year's team that barely made the playoffs and couldn't beat OKC without Westbrook is better than this team that's going to get home-court.
That's why I said that Asik is doing better than him right now. Defensively, they both have their cons and pros (like Asik is better at guarding bigger centers one-on-one but Howard is better at help defense). Offensively, what sets Howard apart from Asik isn't really realized. Howard is an excellent roll-man, a lot better than Asik but right now, there are NO pick-n-roll plays for him. How can you be good at something if you don't show it?
Asik isn't too far from Howard, but you cant just compare them from individual stats. Howard's presence commands attention, and often double team. And his defensive intimidation changed a lot of shots that don't go into personal stats. He's just not a good post up guy in the cases of facing elite defender or double team. His PnR, finishing and block/change shots are things Asik still have a long way to go.
