As far as his individual numbers - I'm not going to lie, yes. We haven't really been able to incorporate him into our system. He has been GREAT for us, the guy is our Worm. He's our anchor in the post, rebounder, and does all the dirty work. The problem is that he's capable of more - I don't know that we'll pay him max money for having that role on this team.
He "ruined" his career in Orlando as he never expanded his game. I do agree that Howard needs a consistent role in the offense in order to be more effective. However, Howard has been better than last year and it will be interesting to see how he is in the playoffs.
We are not better off without him unless we can net Anthony Davis. Until then he's still a good Center and very much what the Rockets need to go anywhere. I just hope the contract negotiations didn't sour him up before the playoffs.
I literally want to throw something at the TV when we don't post him and Jack up a 3. He was a freakn MVP candidate not too long ago. Use him instead of making him a Bogut.
No. I'm not sure there's a better fit for Dwight at this point...i mean, everybody knows that he's not that efficient offensivly to deserve a lot of touches, he can't pass well, he loses the ball too much, he's not Hakeem or Yao in the post...i mean, that's all pretty clear. At this point Dwight fits well the role of a better DeAndre, which is not disrespectfull at all, he can still be a beast, just need to play to his strengths. That said, the Rockets don't use him at his best, like they don't use well other guys...but to me there's also another problem, Dwight is just not that healty anymore, seems pretty clear to me that his body is at 80/90% for 10/15 games, than it goes down at 50/60% for a couple of weeks...and that's a problem, cause when his body is not responding well (like in the last games), he seems to be not able to move well at all, when he's on that kind of shape you just cannot post him up cause it's an auto brick/travel/foul...but when he's ok, i think we should post him up a bit more, especially when we are up and in certain match ups. However i'm sure that in free agency some teams will try to sell him the "here you'll have a primary role on offense bla bla", the Mavs told this to DeAndre lol...so, you can expect them to tell this to Dwight too...but in reality that's not gonna happen, as today, nobody will give Dwight more than 7/8 shots (i mean post ups) per game.
I like Dwight I think he could be a better leader than Harden but at the end of the day hes 30 years old with no post skills and a bad knee. also the importance of a center is fading with todays game and 20M/yr+ for one is a bit detrimental but if we keep him im not complaining.
He literally rolled a guy on a rookie contract out there, with one of the slowest 3 and jumpshots forms in the NBA, that's a above the rim player at PF with him
Howard got 8 post touches last night. As stated by others, he ended up passing many of them. Drummond leads the league in post touches per game at 8.4 and Howard is 2nd at 8.2. Regardless of how it seems to you, he's getting the ball in the post more than anyone in the league except for Drummond who he's just behind. If you truely believe that Dwight is being under utilized then you should also feel that every other post player in the league is underutilized. You may believe that Dwight can be a primary option on offense but that's simply not true. Dwight scores 0.84 pts per possession (ppp) on postups. That's pretty inefficient. Our team's 3 point shooting is more efficient than that and most everything that Harden does is way more efficient. Dwight has success when he gets the ball in a position where he doesn't have to make a move in order to dunk or lay it in. Those opportunities are mainly pick and roll finish, cuts to the hoop and putbacks off of offensive rebounds. When he has good offensive games he's usually getting quite a few of these type of opportunities (I'm disregarding the hack-a-dwight games where his numbers are inflated due to a very large number of FT attempts). The problem is that it's not that easy to create more of those opportunities for him. It comes down to how the opposing defense plays us. If they don't double Harden on the pnr then Dwight won't have an open roll to the hoop and get those easy hoops. Likewise, it's not easy to just grab more offensive rebounds for easy putbacks. Other than offensive rebounds, Dwight is very dependent on teammates to set him up if he's going to be efficient. When we give the ball to Dwight and he tries to create for himself, it's one of the most inefficient things that we do.
This is my OPINION. Spoiler OPINION The NBA has undeniably changed. Dwight's offensive game (or whatever you want to call it) would really have no place in any NBA offense. At least not anymore than what he has now. The NBA has become so much more guard-centric and focused on 3-point shots that, for now at least, the days of offenses operating from the inside out seem to be gone. Think about it, what center in the league has any place in any offense? And why? Deandre Jordan and Tyson Chandler set picks and gets alley oops. Similar to what Dwight does. A lot of centers are mainly for defense and rebounding. Guys like Joakim Noah, Robin Lopez and Timofey Mozgov. Marc Gasol is more involved. But that is because he has a pretty reliable jump shot. DeMarcus Cousins is more involved. But he is a better offensive player with more moves and more range. Al Jefferson and Enes Kanter have much better low post moves (with much worse defense and rebounding). The Warriors have been better playing Draymond Green at Center with his ability to shoot over Andrew Bogut. Anthony Davis, even though he probably is more of a PF, has much greater range. Speaking of PF's, even they have been trying to move farther away from the paint. Lamarcus Aldridge and Kevin Love have always shot a lot of mid range or 3 point shots. Both Chris Bosh and Blake Griffin have been increasing their range more and more every year. The whole idea of a 'stretch 4' has become more and more prominent as the NBA has moved that direction. So if you think Dwight Howard is wasting his time here because he has no place in our offense, let me ask you- what team could he go to where he wouldn't be wasting his time and he would have a place in their offense. With the way the NBA is today, any team in the league he goes to will ask him to play defense, get rebounds, set picks, dunk alley-oops with the occasional post up opportunity. Exactly what we do. With his declining athleticism and the officiating of today and everything else, if a team asks him to do more than that, they won't be very good.
