The Howard signing turned out to be a disaster. It was a bad fit in the locker room, and it was a bad fit on the court. The Rockets best season with Howard was the season he missed the most games. This season the Rockets have finally tried to surround Harden with players that are well suited for playing Moreyball.
Dwight Howard was and will continue to be garbage. He does not have the mental fortitude of a champion. Period. Next thread, please.
I know Grant Hill will defend Howard and its understandable. Him and the Hawks just signed Howard and they are hoping the problems were not Howard and that Howard will return to his elite form because of a new environment. I am glad that Dwight Howard left this team because he was dragging them down. Last season the locker room issues probably was not ALL his fault, but he was still a part of the reason for the issues. Another thing is that when he does not get his touches, he would pout and allow it to affect him on defense. The main issue with Howard is, when he's not happy, his game is affected. During his time in Houston, after all those time training and working on his post game with Hakeem and McHale, his post game remains the same....which is highly flawed, inconsistent, and not efficient. That's one of the reasons why the Rockets slowly went away from having him in the post and wanted him in the PnR more. Against inferior post defenders, Dwight Howard is good in the post. But against average post defenders, he struggles. He is most efficient as a roll man catching lobs and attacking the rim on PnRs or put backs. What really caught my eye is back when Dwight was a Laker, he did not get along with Steve Nash because he was wanted to post up more than playing PnR with Nash. Dwight Howard firmly believes in the old school NBA where the offense runs through the center in the post. Its difficult to be a successful team in the NBA when one of your main player allows his game to be affected if he's not happy. Its like having to babysit him and making sure to keep him happy in order for him to play hard. Dwight is known for his defense but it was subpar last year. His athleticism allows him to make plenty of weak side blocks but as an overall defender, he's closer to average than elite. The biggest problem with Dwight Howard is he never truly developed his game early in his career and relies purely on his athleticism. Now, his athleticism is slowly deteriorating and he doesn't have any other type of skill to fall back on. He has been working on his mid range jump shot but its ridiculous that he's just started on that 12 years into his career. Developing a consistent, reliable jump shot takes years where it improves bit by bit every season. He will do well this year in Atlanta because he's still physically gifted and healthy enough. As long as the Hawks continues to feed him in the post and have the offense go through him, he will be happy. But like everywhere Dwight's been, it will end in ugly divorce.
This is nothing new, quite a few of us mentioned how dysfunctional that locker room was some years ago. Cyberx also brought this to our attention. Lol
That's what was so frustrating with DH. He's an unstoppable PnR player, but wanted to play Dream or Shaq's post game, which you described perfectly.
We got to the WCF with Howard and Harden playing well. Harden was playing at an mvp level but we don't go that far without Howard as our 2nd best player As far as this year's team, they have proven nothing and it's safe to say they aren't making the WCF
If he had a jump shot and could hit free throws - omg. But he can't. I will say that when he did play like a man this new sissified league would blow their sissy whistles. BS.
its quiet obvious now It's becoming more apparent who the problem child were leaking info and causing disharmony. Dwight and his crew.
Why? The Rockets have as good a chance as any to reach the WCF. Besides GSW, Spurs are the only team which MIGHT be better than the Rox this year, and unlike us they're being dragged down by LMA drama.
The Spurs won 67 games last year and were beaten by the Clippers, who won 53. Between them and Golden State, I seriously doubt we can beat one of them in the playoffs, much less two. In 2014-15 the Rockets won 56 games. I don't see that happening.
For all of Dwight's faults, McHale is absolutely correct in that Howard has rose to the occasion during the playoffs. He almost singlehandedly carried us through the Portland series when Harden was sucking. When Harden's style of game becomes less efficient due to allowing more contact, Dwight's game flourished because he often times is still the most physical presence on most nights. The second point that McHale made is I think the main reason that Morey didn't recruit him hard back. Which is the body not being able to hold up. The back and knees were cited as reasons why Kevin didn't believe Dwight could bring it consistently on a future basis. So people outside of the organization like Atl/Hill think that it was more of Dwight's mindset and that in the right environment, it will change. The people in our organization believe that it is more his body's limitations. I also am wondering body's limitations are part of the reason why he is reluctant to do P&Rs. He might be very effective at it still but how much would you be willing to run/dash if your back and knees were hurting? I also thought that Mchale's comments were very revealing and part of the reason why they decided to go with someone else. As a basketball mind, he understands the game and is absolutely insightful and experienced; as you would expect from a basketball lifer and one of the best and most skilled players of our generation. He is also a great personality and easy to get along with. However Kevin also shows his limitations in that he could not relate to the various personas in the comment where he states he can not understand why others did not go home to their wife like he did and call it a day. At the end of the day, a coach's job or a leader in general is to get a group of people with different backgrounds to buy into the same team mentality for a cohesive agenda. Thus i don't disagree with that firing, but I thought this missing ingredient could have come from other sources. I think that is the biggest thing the organization lacked last year. A unifier. Fortunately, Harden seems to have understood that principle (knowingly or unknowingly) and has worked hard to be that guy. He sacrificed his olympics and other things to get the guys together so they were all on the same page as early as possible. Which gives me hope about this season and moving forward because we have alignment now based on last year's experience.
Last year they had Tim Duncan, TD has such a big impact because he keeps everyone in line, you didn't hear no **** about LMA b****ing about his role in the offense because TD was there. Now he's gone and LMA feels like he's the top dawg which is why you start hearing about some discontent in the locker room. This year everyone except Kawhi is even more a year older, since Spurs always go the distance in the playoffs guys like Tony Parker and Manu already have a ton of treads in their tires. And their bigs aren't synergistic, Pau Gasol and LMA play exactly the same way on offense, and those two will clog the paint up for TP and Kawhi to score effectively. I'm not saying Spurs will be crap I'm saying this year the Rox can match up to them considering our chemistry is way better and our players fit like a glove next to each other so you can expect a good run this year. You won't have any problem with GSW until WCF believe me they are sure fire locks for Finals if not champs already. Asking anymore than WCF is just dreaming but reaching the WCF won't be a problem IMHO, at worst we're like top 3 team in the West.
Yet with the Rockets, we saw that Dwight maybe 5% of the time? Last season, he might have played like that once or twice all year. The capability to dominate is there, but he only brings it occasionally. No thanks. So glad he's gone.
