Not for what we got, a limit offensive skill set with a reputation of being a passive aggressive center who still believes he's playing in the late 80's. Doesn't realize that we only score 28% of the time we throw the ball into him in the post. He's delusional thinking he's the NBA Finals Orlando D12 instead of the broken down version we see now. But thank GOD our GM isn't going to sign him again. I hope.
Of course it was. What were the alternatives? You win in the NBA with Stars but they are hard to come by. Howard was coming off back surgery but the hope was that he'd get healthy and return to his Orlando form. That obviously didn't happen but you still do the deal because it gave you a chance.
Not worth it - he had little or nothing to do with our WCF appearance (injured or gimpy most of the season, wasn't a key cog to the game 6 comeback) and posted empty stats in the Portland series (dominating for only about 1 quarter). At the time of his signing, I would have brought in Milsapp instead (who signed a bargain contract that year) while keeping Asik. Next year I would have brought in Lowry and we would have been able to sign Ariza as well while keeping Parsons for either 1 more season (don't forget that we declined his team option as a thanks to Feagan for Dwight's signing) or for half a season and then trading him for some value. Would that team have outperformed the current one? I don't know, but I know Milsap has played better than any of our big men in the past 3 years and his skill set as a strong defending stretch 4 would have fit in nicely with Harden. Plus we would have had the assets to make a trade.
Best playoff run in the past 20 years. The rockets have been a mediocre/bad franchise for the last 20 or so years. I think H/H Era was a success. Three playoff appearances got to WCF.
I was never a fan of his signing given his history - I thought there were other bigs we'd have been better off with.
There was never a chance. Only fools believed there was. I've mentioned this article multiple times over the past 3 years and it's absolutely eerie how on target it was: http://grantland.com/features/searching-dwight-howard/ Take a look at point #5. Bill Simmons can come across like a privileged frat boy but the guy knows his stuff. It's too bad the Rockets didn't read this article.
I voted yes. He always played with effort, gave it his all, and wasn't really a locker room problem... until the very end it seems.
Of course it was worth it. We swung for the fences after years of treadmilling. He was also a piece to the 'superteam' puzzle that we tried to achieve two straight summers in a row (Bosh two years ago; LMA this past summer). Asik sure as hell wasn't going to make those guys seriously consider signing with us.
After many season of having finesse/soft centers on the roster, like Dream, Yao, Hayes, Asik, i was extremely happy to have Dwight who was an athletic, intimidating dunking monster. So i was gonna say yes based on his overall play, but he missed quite a bit of games..... so no cant say it was worth it.
I think it was worth it. You don't know how it works out until you try it. The first two seasons...there was hope it would work. We made it to the Western Conference finals last season. I seriously doubt we would have made it that far without him. But, we don't know what the team would have looked like if we didn't sign him, either. It's easy to look back now that it didn't work and say "oh...hell no". That's not how this (life) works. I still think it was more about not having the right complimentary pieces around Harden and Howard. But, what those complimentary pieces are, I have no idea and neither does Morey.
People should wait until the playoffs are over for these polls, so the knee jerking will be finished then. Let's also keep in mind if Smith doesn't tear Dwight's mcl in the wcf, would it make a difference of a couple points that we lost those first 2 games by? People really forget how close we were then, and how dominant Dwight was against Portland as well.
He was fine until this year. We made the best playoff run in 20 years with him playing his best ball during the playoffs. Look, he sucked this year but he was worth it the first 2. I'm glad we signed him. I'll be fine when he opts out.
I just don't get this. He played just half the games during the regular season. What kind of max player does that? At best, he was useful for 1.5 seasons.
You were wrong then and now. When was the last time we made it to the WCF? Perhaps with a real PG, we could have closed the deal.
Overall it was worth it. As a fan the only the you ask for is hope. And they gave it to us. The excitement in July 2013 when he signed. The game 6 win against the Clips and the trip to the WCF make it worth it. Had the Rockets been able to sign Bosh (not factoring in the clots) and keep Parsons things might have different. Oh well. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It was pretty fun ride.
Actually that was DMO mostly getting us those 56 wins - Dwight did have his moments in the playoffs though.
I agree - I remember not wanting him here because of his character. I remember saying if you guys don't like T-mac wait until you see Howard. We need guys who are ready to put their ego aside and just want to win, and willing to do whatever it takes to do it.
