The problem is Dwight is a much better player than almost all of those you mentioned besides a few. I don't personally know each teams offensive style. But I know there are teams in need of a decent in post player who can change the offense. He did it in Orlando with a bunch of average players who could shoot. He isn't that Dwight but is still capable of backing down and passing out. Like I've said. He has never shot over 13 shots a game. Also as i have said, he needs to pick and roll more which ai see him do a lot. And do your touches include plays where a player has picked up their dribble and just throw it in to dwight because they have no other option? How many set touches does he get? I just am saying there needs to be a balance of him and harden. Not all dwight and no harden. I mean ariza and brewer and other people get more shots than dwight. It's ridiculous
OP, are you one of Dwight's 8 or so baby mommas kid? If so, I understand what you're saying. Do you have similar genetics and athleticism to your dad? Maybe the Rockets could sign you up so that kidhoward can be mentored by Howard senior?
In all seriousness though I really believe what I said has valid points that a lot of people see and agree with me on. Like i said. Opinion.
The problem is, Dwight is just not a very good offensive player outside of dunks. Think about truly skilled offensive centers you can remember. Kareem, Hakeem, and let's take Yao also. All of those guys did the things Dwight does well defensively, some better, some worse, but all four of them were good-to-excellent defenders. But what you had in those three above was a player you could literally RELY on to score, to beat his man, to develop and employ offensive basketball skills to put the ball in the basket. Kareem had the 'Sky-Hook'. Hakeem had lots of moves, but what we call the 'Dream Shake' was probably the best of his many moves. And Yao was a good shooter, and had both a good range out to about 18 feet, as well as good touch on his hook shot. But what does Dwight have offensively? Back it in, back it in, turn and brick a little hook or bank shot. Now I will say this: Dwight has obviously worked hard, taking Hakeem's tutelage to heart, and he has some pretty good 'moves' now that he never really had before. But.. his shots on anything other than dunks or pure 'at-the-basket layups.. they just... seldom go in the basket. Kind of like his free throws. He just.. isn't very good offensively in the league. Now that's a relative term. Shaq wasn't very skilled offensively, but he didn't NEED to be particularly skilled, because he had the size and strength to simply go through people and use more power than skill to put the ball in the bucket. That's what Dwight is good at.. or was anyway. He was similarly dominant physically, as Shaq was, but sleeker and lighter. And while he was using his almost overwhelming strength, speed and agility as his main offensive abilities, he was the cream of the crop both defensively and offensively. But the really great basketball players would constantly improve, would constantly add new skills, or refine old ones. Watching Dream in the mid-90's was a joy, seeing how he had come to grasp and understand how to control a game from his position, how he could use his skill and knowledge to impose his will on the other teams.. it was amazing. But it would not have been possible if he had not been absolutely deadly from so many parts of the floor - from either baseline, to anywhere inside of about 15 feet, if Dream had the ball, he was either going to score, or he was going to find the open man for a good shot. You can see glimpses that Dwight is starting to have some of this kind of understanding, of how to dictate the game from the low post. However, his offensive game does not strike fear into the hearts of opposing players and coaches, and because of this, other teams do not have to adjust as much when Dwight has the ball in the low post. More often than not, the opponent simply crashes the boards AFTER Dwight shoots, rather than trying to prevent him from shooting in the first place. He wants to be Dream, he wants to be Kareem.. and I can see him trying, I can see the effort and the genuine desire, I cannot fault him in any way for that, there is no lack of EFFORT there at all. He's just got no real touch for shooting. And it honestly seems that if he hasn't acquired that touch by this point in his career, he's probably never going to improve much beyond where he is now. I can see him improving a little bit through sheer work, but not enough to cause opponents to have to adjust to him. He's not going to be a 'pick your poison' guy like Kareem, Hakeem and Yao were. Because of this, it really seems that the Rockets should just shift focus more to playing to Dwights actual strengths, which are alley-oops and dunks off misses or drive-and-dish opportunities from Harden and Lawson, and whoever else is having a hot hand on any given night. This would reduce Dwight's misses, raise his scoring, and actually force the opponents to have to account for him offensively, which currently they have to do much less. So I don't think it's as much a matter of Dwight being wasted because he is here, as much as it is a hard-headed refusal to accept his limitations and strengths offensively and actually commit to using him in the ways in which he would be most effective. Whether this is on the coaches, or Morey, or Dwight himself, I don't know, but I do hope they snap to it sooner rather than later.
aelliott, so why is Dwight's usage % so much lower then before? How was he able to average, say, 18 his first year with us? (serious question, not trying to pick an argument here).
The rockets played way more inside out his first year and it transitioned into perimeter based as Harden had the mvp caliber season last year. Hench Howard acknowledged he would accept the Deandre Jordan role type when he came back from injury last season.
If you're about getting paid millions to play a game, he's doing just fine. If it's championship or bust, anyone not playing for Golden State is wasting his career.
His FG% is actually the second highest in his career. His minutes and shots are down. I don't believe that's due to a lack of touches however. I think it has to do with him taking smarter shots and passing out of the post more (as someone here mentioned). I actually think Dwight has finally bought into the idea that to be effective in the post he needs to limit his repertoire to one or two moves. His hook shot has looked way better this season and he's doing a good job making the quick simple move and finding shooters when he's doubles. He is having one of his most efficient seasons. He would be wasting his time if he were on a team where he was forced to carry the load and facilitate the entire offense from the post. He needs a ball dominant play-making star to partner with or the jig is up (which is what we've seen when he was constantly fed in the post over and over again).
Dwight Howard doesn't deserve a single post shot. Literally a single one. His post numbers have consistently been one of the worst among centers because of his turnover rate and poor foul shooting. We need a player like DeAndre Jordan who knows his role and doesn't ask for more.
Inputs for usage are FG Attempts, Free Throw Attempts, Assists and Turnovers. Over the last 3 years his shot attempts have gone down from 11.3 to 8.5. His freethrow attempts have gone down too 9.0 to 7.0. Assists have also gone done 1.8 to 1.4. Turnovers are down too 3.2 to 2.4. Those lower numbers mean lower usage but his efficiency has gone up. That's primarily due to eliminating some of his less efficient pushups. Overall he's taking a higher percentage of efficient shots but overall its a lower volume.
Better player yes but not necessarily better offensive player. Gasol, Jefferson, Davis, Cousins and Kantor are all much better offensive players. If you remove pick and rolls, putbacks and cuts to tbe hoop from the equation then Howard isn't better than many on the list.
True. But the point remains, the way that today's NBA has evolved, the Center position is much less important than it used to be. A lot of teams used to run their offense through the Center, which is why the position has so many great players in the past. Teams would throw the ball to them in the post and let them work. If a double team comes, the center's responsibility would be to pass out of it to an open shooter. Offense was seen as an inside out approach. Today's offensive game is much different. Today, offenses are operated more from an outside-in, drive and kick approach. I listed those other Centers to attempt to illustrate that not really any team utilizes their center a ton on offense any more. Which is why the Center position of today's NBA is so weak compared to the past. If you are listing 'all-time greatest Centers', the most recent one to even be in that conversation is prime Shaq from late 90's and early 00's. There hasn't been an all-time great Center in a decade. Yao maybe could have but then he was injured too much to be considered. Prime Dwight may have come close but never seemed to quite be good enough. I don't know what Dwight will do this offseason. He might decide to go to a team that is doing better this season or that has a better coach or has another superstar that is more engaged and less streaky than ours. I don't know. I couldn't blame him if he left for any of those reasons. But if he leaves because he 'wants to be more involved in the offense' or if he thinks that he could still carry a team's offense night in and night out like he did in Orlando, then I would say that he is delusional. That isn't the role of a Center at this point of the NBA.
So he's 2nd behind Drummond in your previous text, but how do they compare to his earlier years? I really just don't know where to find those stats.
Even in that 2009 season Howard was still only 4th on the team in FG attempts per game. The offense didn't run through Dwight. He got a ton of putbacks on offensive rebounds ands he shot 10.7 FT per game while only getting 1.4 assists per game.
In his first season here (2014) Dwight got 8.6 post touches per game which ranked #3 in the league. He was behind Al Jefferson 9.0 and Pekovic (10.2). That 2014 season is the earliest that the NBA started tracking touches.
