on hindsight, maybe we should have kept Asik for the last year of his contract and told him to suck it up one more year. the defensive vacuum created when Howard sits is so glaring, I don't know how we can remedy that this year. when Howard is playing so bad, I just want to bench him. Asik would have been our insurance. Hindsight--never give away defensive bigs
Amazing how the entire narrative about a guy can shift so quickly after a few subpar games. Seems like last week when he was an MVP candidate, now he's a national punchline. Guess he's the new scapegoat since Harden is playing defense. He hasn't even seemed that smiley this year, he's just going about his business. He was a bit theatrical towards the Mexican crowd, but that was pretty much it.
Howard is a giant goof and to a lot of society, if you're that big then it means you should be the toughest guy. These guys are paid to play a game, not be the toughest. It's a bunch of name calling, of the schoolyard variety.
If Dwight had a jumpshot and could make free throws, he wouldn't be considered "soft" since he'd be unstoppable.
Soft? Misunderstood, disliked, goofy, clown, good father, good teammate questionable leader what else?
Many people always downplay him on basketball, but he never fight back with his play on the court. Can I say it's soft?
Dwight takes some of the hardest physical abuse of any player on the court today. Look at all the slaps on the forearm when people are trying to send him to the line rather than giving up a dunk. Those kinds of plays comprise the majority of Dwight's scoring so to say that he is soft is really dumb. It's also great how he just laughs at Kobe when he told him he is soft. It's like a mouse trying to antagonize a lion. Dwight attitude tells me he couldn't give less of a **** about these people.
He has to win a championship for it to go away until then the punchlines and memes will keep coming period!
Your reading his attitude the wrong way... this attitude is EXACTLY why people are calling him soft. When Kobe and other players are attacking him and antagonizing him, he's not laughing it off or blowing them off because he's got supreme confidence, or because he's so mature that he's above all of that. He's laughing and blowing it off because he's that's the ONLY way he knows how to handle it. He's showing the "I could care less" attitude because the reality is that he's very insecure and he has very little self confidence in his overall basketball skills and his basketball IQ. Why else do you think he's always making claims to the media about how he needs to dominate the game, and be a leader for his team... over and over, for years on end now? And then he never really backs up those claims, at least not consistently. And he hasn't really improved his game in 11 years now. He's basically still the same player he was when he first came into the league. He's had years of working with people like Ewing, Olajuwan, McHale, Van Gundy, Carroll Dawson, Gasol, etc... and he hasn't significantly improved his game at all. He still shows no signs of better footwork or better fundamentals. His free throw shooting hasn't improved at all. He still commits moronic, silly fouls which take him out of games. He still commits way too many ridiculous goal tending violations. He doesn't stay focused and he doesn't play hard and hustle for 48 minutes. Bottom line is... he's not committed to improving and becoming a great player. So he's not committed to winning. Howard laughs people off because he doesn't know what else to do. He can't shut them up by dominating the game, because he just doesn't have the skills or mental toughness to dominate the game. So it goes back to this... Howard will only succeed as a highly paid "role player". And it'll have to be on a team with at least 2 other All-Star caliber players, with some other good role players mixed in. I think this is what Morey and Alexander's plan has been all along, and that's why Morey said right after they got Howard, "We're not done yet, we still feel we need another significant player".
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/houstonaccio-moreyball-rockets-efficiency-fun/ "[The Rockets] are this era’s version of the Bad Boys — the Stat Boys — only with a center who has been called a p***y twice in a month by All-NBA-level players."
Hakeem demanded the ball Kenny would say they were scared of the big fella. Only one that wasn't was Sam Cassel and maybe Vernon Maxwell. Dream was all about business. Jordan would fight his teammates. He was all about business and winning. Dwight needs to cut all the dancing out. Last season even Harden didn't take him serious and sometimes wouldn't feed the big man in the paint. I like Dwight but if he wants to win a chip in this league, he better take a different approach and start knocking down his free throws. He also needs to at least locate a 10' set shot.
Rockets should wake up from the Olajuwon dream and keeps getting failure centers. I guess Yao Ming was the best out of his crappy draft but Howard? The guy is acting like he is a superstar since he came into the league. I bet kobe was mega annoyed with his softness and probably the noob personality.
Heard this on ESPNLA radio earlier today: Ramona Shelburne and John Ireland said that on the 2008 Olympic's team, all the major players were really focused on winning gold (since the US had not done well internationally in prior tournaments). However, Dwight was acting like a clown and many of the coaches and other players were bothered by it. Dwight was injured in 2012 but sources indicate that he wouldn't have been invited back even if he was healthy.
Can't say i don't believe it... I'm not sure if this was brought up in the game thread, but watching the Minny game in MX, I thought it was pretty obvious Dwight missed those dunks because he was trying too hard to entertain the crowd. Give them what they want sort of thing...It's nice of him to want to do things like that, but it's really difficult to see in a competitive environment. Same goes for blocking a shot into the third row. I would rather have those 4 points and an extra possession. It was a blowout though, so i guess it's easy to laugh it off. FWIW 2008 Roster: Anthony Boozer Bosh Bryant Howard James Kidd Williams Paul Prince Redd Wade
KOBE WON’T PILE ON HOWARD WITH K.D. HOUSTON — Kobe Bryant’s contentious history with Dwight Howard, as both teammate and opponent, is well-documented. The pair had a scrap in the season opener at Staples Center. But on a night when Howard sat out of a 98-92 loss to L.A. due to a strained right knee, Bryant did not want to jump into the war of words between the Rockets center and Kevin Durant of the Thunder. When Howard and Durant got into an argument Sunday night in Oklahoma City, Durant reportedly called Howard an expletive that questioned his manhood. “No, I don’t feel that way,” Bryant said. “And I don’t think Kevin does either. At moments of confrontation during a game you’ll say things in the heat of the moment. I know Dwight. I’m sure Kevin does. We don’t feel that way about him. “You get in an argument with somebody, you’ll say things out of frustration, out of anger that you really don’t mean. It’s a heat of the battle, heat of the moment. “You (media) guys have all been in arguments, guys that are married. Sometimes you say things that you want to take back, that you don’t really mean. But it’s in the heat of confrontation.”
