How are those stats relevant? This year, Dwight's offensive role was greatly reduced and he ended the year with a -1.33 ORPM. Last year, when he had a greater role, it was -0.12. Seems like it improves with greater usage. Harden also earns the max salary, and he came into the season out of shape. There's no excuse for that. He was also a poor leader and didn't improve his game from last season. I think he's the most disappointing Rockets player this season.
Harden is still a top SG and top 10 player overall, and although not enough, has contributed the most wins to this team this season. All the while earning LESS MONEY than Dwight. Exactly what did Dwight do to justify his contract this year? The guy can't even break top 10 in his position, and has done nothing positive offensively or defensively. What exactly is his contribution to this team? rebounding? Not even that, because most of Dwight's rebounds come from sacrificing contesting shots of an opponent for the sake of grabbing rebounds. The guy is just a major liability all around, and the faster we cut him the better.
I mean, this is the 3rd team now that Dwight has joined and the locker room fell apart. I'm not saying it's all on Dwight - Orlando's management of him was terrible, and the Lakers were clearly on fumes but still thought they were a contender, but at some point you have to note that Dwight is a common denominator in all these broken locker rooms. Besides, Harden at least can get better as a player - Howard is clearly on the decline and his style of play is already outdated in the modern NBA. Dwight isn't going to turn your team's fortunes around at this point but Harden might be able to - and that's why you hate on Howard and not Harden. If Harden were in his 30s and Dwight in his mid 20s, this is a different conversation...
Did the locker room fall apart (what does that even mean?) or did they just suck on the court? I mean...obviously this group of guys weren't a cohesive group like they were when...say...Parsons was around. Losing in itself breeds discontent. I'm just trying to understand if Dwight was actually toxic in the locker room and, if so, then why is that being said?
Dwight is nothing more than a big man version of Steve Francis. Completely dependent on athleticism and has zero basketball fundamentals. Started to decline as early as in late 20s, and will become useless as his physical condition deteriorates.
Of course he contributed the most to wins. That's true of every high usage, ball-dominant player in NBA history. And I don't know if Harden is a top 10 player. He's an incredible individual scorer/playmaker, but when he doesn't have the ball, he's useless. He's also a terrible defender. This is a horribly weak argument. Basically, if Dwight contests a shot, you'd criticize him for not getting the rebound. And if he doesn't contest the shot and fights for the rebound, you criticize him for not contesting the shot. No matter what he does, he's going to get criticized. Also, I remember him contesting a lot of shots early in the season. I also remember our opponents getting a lot of offensive rebounds as a result.
Except RPM, Harden is universally ranked in top 10 in almost every relevant statistical category, and I think that is more 'accurate' measure than your emotional judgement. So what? even if he's getting the rebounds, why is he getting paid $20+ million a year to do that one simple job? and the reason Howard's rebounds are overrated is because those are mostly uncontested, and probably soaks up easy rebounds that would go to his teammates if he we'rent being so selfish. Also, Dwight's rim protection has been horrible this year. He's not even average anymore, just flat-out bad defender at this point. Dwight absolutely deserves the most hate because he doesn't do anything positive on the court while earning the MAX SALARY. I call that ripping us off. 'Nuff said.
A lot of it has to do with Dwight's professional attitude, along with his declining game. He seems to rub a lot of people the wrong way. His Orlando teammates didn't seem to have much love for him. Kobe, Gasol, and Nash were frustrated with him. Harden is feuding with him. And people around the league, like KD, don't seem to respect him either. Either he's getting picked on by everyone, or he's bringing this on himself. Since fans of his own teams have always gotten sick of him, I'm guessing it's him. He simply doesn't have fans.
How is it more accurate? Isn't that what you'd expect from a ball-dominant, high usage player like Harden? He was brought here to be an offensive focal point and provide top notch defense. What you don't realize is that offense is fun. Scoring baskets is fun. Playing defense, being physical in the paint, boxing out....that's not fun. Also, defense and rebounding is more than "one simple job". The vast majority of rebounds are uncontested. Once a player sees that he doesn't have a chance of getting a rebound, he doesn't even try. Like I said before, I saw Dwight contest plenty of shots. The opposing team would get the offensive rebound and score. It was probably in the Rockets' best interest that Dwight focused on getting rebounds instead of contesting every shot. Harden also earned the max, and he came into the season out of shape. He was also a poor leader and didn't improve his game at all. In fact, you can easily argue that, based on his horrible defense, he regressed overall as a player. He's only 26 years old. At his age, he should be improving every year.
He declined severely while making 22 million dollars . If you are the highest paid player on the team and things go so south you deserve some of the blame . Athletic loss is inevitable and I don't blame him for that , but he never put in the work to try and adapt his game and help the team . If Dwight was all about winning he could have asked for less minutes and played more active in the ones he had . He could have studied positional team defense . He could have been a more willing roller . He had the salary , the age , and experience to be expected to be a leader and do everything to help the team . Complaining publicly about touches while at the same time becoming ineffective on defense makes you liable for some hate .
gonna be a lot of hate based on the production vs price... personally, i think he just got fed up with Hardens narcissistic attitude and checked out by midseason... at least the dude didn't make a spectacle of it all... He will have better opportunities elsewhere...
He's basically a dinosaur from a bygone era of basketball. There's no place in the modern pace-and-space NBA for a center that can't shoot, can't create offensively and can't make free throws. Dwight has relied on raw athleticism instead of refining his game. This is evident today when he still, after all of these years, routinely commits goaltending when going up for a block. He's used to be able to explode and block a shot; now he's always late on that initial jump.
What does efficiency stats like TS%, PER, WS/48, BPM has anything to do with being ball-dominant? Allen Iverson was also a ball-dominant player and was ranked very low on efficiency. Harden is opposite of that, the very reason Morey acquired Harden in the first place is because of his efficient offensive production. You still didn't answer my question. What did Dwight do on offense & defense this season to justify his salary level? and uncontested rebounds % is especially high for Dwight compared to other players. He was 3rd in RPG but only 9th in contested RPG. http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pl...ir=1&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular Season That's why I say his rebounds are overrated and soaks up easy rebounds to pad his stats. Dwight contesting shots? If that was the case why is his rim protection numbers so horrible? http://nyloncalculus.com/stats/rim-protection/ He is a below average rim protector and horrible perimeter defender. All of which points to the fact that he doesn't contest shots enough. Dwight ranks just 38th in DRPM among all centers. He is no longer a good defender, and at times can be pretty bad. That is why we play better defense whenever Capela in on the floor. Dwight is a huge liability offensively and easily replaceable defensively. And his earning MAX SALARY. I say fu** that. Doesn't matter since Harden is still earning LESS MONEY than Dwight, while producing MUCH MORE. In terms of cost/benefit analysis, there's no comparison who is ripping us off. Harden had historically good season last year, almost comparable or even better than Hakeem's MVP season, so blaming Harden for not being as good this year is like saying why can't you play historically great level every single year, which is absurd. The fact is without Harden, this team is basically 76ers or Lakers. Without Dwight? We could be even better. And Dwight is earning the most salary on this team, thereby hurting our financial means to acquire good, solid players. He's not good on anything at this point and this team will be much better off without him.
I guess you don't follow the team closely but there are multiple articles from reliable sources like Woj that say: -teammates lost respect for Dwight because he's always smiling/joking in serious situations -never demands the ball -passive-aggressive (cries to the media about problems but doesn't talk to teammates) -paid like Lebron but plays like an overpaid role player -inconsistent effort on both ends, especially this year
forgot to mention, one of the key points in him coming to Houston was that it was expected of him to improve his game under McHale and Olajuwon but instead he regressed and worst of all, he has been shooting FTs worse than ever!
Dwight is one of the biggest frauds in the history of sports Never has so much been expected of a player but yet has done so little He was good for three years but ever since then he will be on his 4th team in five years and virtually nothing to show for it Hes done a better job at blowing up locker rooms, getting coaches fired, and stealing money, than actually playing basketball
