Dwight was a bad fit. In hindsight, it's truly amazing just how bad a fit he was. Same with Lawson. Why is Harden so difficult to mesh with, and is it wise to make your centerpiece a player who can only flourish by stagnating their teammates?
It's not difficult to mesh with Harden, Durant and Westbrook already did. Dwight was a bad fit because he doesn't want to fit like he should. Harden is a willing pick & roll player, he played a lot of p&r with Asik, with Capela...and not with Dwight who is the same player that didn't mesh in LA with Nash (best p&r passer ever?). Lawson is just done.
This has nothing to do with Harden Lawson just sucked - he just forgot how to play basketball for whatever reason. He seemed scared to hold on to the ball for long stretches of time and couldn't even run the offense the limited time he was on the floor alone. He didn't attack the basket like he used to in Denver and it looked like he was scared to shoot the ball (not something you need with the offense that HOU was running). Howard and Harden worked in stretches. Howard just doesn't want to commit to playing the PnR mainly, despite it being his biggest strength on offense. He worked with Hakeem on post moves and still managed to get worse at posting up by the year. He might have it some nights, but doesn't consistently. You see him in the post and can see that he has to think about what he is going to do next - if he doesn't get into his post move after 1-2 dribbles, it is over - he will either hoist up a hook shot with no feel for the ball, turn it over or get fouled (essentially a TO anyway). There is sufficient evidence out there that suggests that Dwight is the one who is hard to mesh with - he just can't seem to deal with the fact that he is limited on offense and best used as a PnR guy , where he could be very potent if he committed to playing it consistently. We've heard guys like Terry tell him that post touches aren't everything and that he should do what is best for the team, Nash had issues with Dwight because he didn't want to play the PnR, Daryl told Dwight that he is best suited to play the PnR when Dwight complained about his role, Kobe had issues with Dwight and Harden had a few issues with Dwight. There is one common denominator here - it ain't Harden though If Dwight signs for a reasonable contract, ideally a 1yr contract at 10-15 million, I'd be ok with having him back but only if and that's a big IF, he is committed to playing defense and PnR. (Obviously it is rather unlikely that he'd sign a contract like this). I do like Dwight, he just seems a tad bit immature. I don't think he is a bad guy, even though he did quit on this team and that is anything but professional. You get him on the cheap and committed to playing within the offense - great...since this is unlikely to happen - thank you for your services Dwight and all the best on your next team.
True, but they still played a lot of minutes and well together, it's not like they were never on the court together cause Harden started games on the bench.
Not bull**** at all. They tried to talk Dwight into coming back and play the PnR (which he's very good at). The only problem is that Dwight entered the NBA in the twilight of the "big man" era & wants to play that type of offense (which he isn't good at). Dwight willingly playing the PnR in Houston would be awesome, but it ain't happening unfortunately.
From Morey's weibo in China: "We talked with DH and his agent, we tried to convince him not to opt out. We deeply value his ability at the both ends of the court and his leadership off the court. We need to look at the good side. we have $45m cap space."
It has so much to do with coaching. It's not EASY to mesh with Harden if you have been an offensive leader at any point of your career. It is a difficult thing to convince Harden to give up the ball, and the coach should not easily take the ball out of Harden's hands. Harden is arguably the best player in the world with the ball in his hands. The are basically 4 circumstances where the ball should leave Harden's hands: 1) He's passing it to a more open Lebron James. 2) He's passing it to a more open Steph Curry. 3) He's passing it to his teammates within a system of excellent player and ball movement where he remains a threat to the opponents defense even after he passes the ball. 4) A good shooter is extremely wide open. That's it. So before we talk about how easy it is to share the ball with Harden, let's also talk about what the alternative is. I don't want him passing the ball to a stationary Corey Brewer or Dwight Howard in the high post or a covered Patrick Beverley in the half court with no movement. Having said all that, Harden needs a SHOCKING amount of work on his understanding of what to do without the ball both on offense and defense. I have no doubt he can figure it out. I am confident MDA will come closer than our previous coaches to convincing him to do it, and teaching him to do it, on offense at least. Howard didn't mesh well with this team because the team failed to convince him that PnR would be best for him and the team. Year after year, teams whine about "difficult" players but in reality all superstars are non-conformists, it takes a brilliant coach to convince those types of people to make significant changes to their games. The best coaches and organizations are able to convince 90% of those players to be key players in different ways. Then there are coaches like ours and fans that are looking for a superstar that's available, wants to play here, in a non-major market, shuts up publicly, mindlessly does what they want, takes less money, doesn't smile, doesn't have fun in his personal life, is young, and has already led his team to playoff victories. Good luck. Try actually motivating a player for once. Unfortunately, I don't think MDA is the guy to do all this, but I'll give him a chance.
Yep. It was an emotional post :grin: Well, i'm not sure honestly...Lawson was/is done, we have seen how he played in Indiana, and we saw Westbrook/Durant/Harden together in the past, and i believe great players always find a way to make it work, and btw there's basically no reason to even consider the Lawson experiment since it isn't even started. As for Dwight, coaching always matters, sure, but in this case eh...you're talking about the need of a brilliant coach, well, Dwight had that in Orlando, and you know how it ended. I mean, at this point, after 10 years, how many brilliant minds have told Dwight the same damn thing? You just cannot convince someone who doesn't want to change and that when he's not comfortable with the situation, instead of facing it like the veteran he is, he starts quitting on the team, rides the media talking **** or spitting lies about his coach/team/gm...he needs to grow up if he wants to be a better player. When Rondo started quitting on the team, a brilliant coach like Carlisle benched his ass, and he did that during a playoff series.
You don't miss your water 'till your well runs dry My only second guess for my burnin' yearnin' for years for Dwight, since Yao's foot broke, was his ineptitude at the foul line. I didn't have any idea what a momentum killer that would be. Short of that, you hata's are are going to pretty upset when your 200 lbs. Center gets pushed around and teams get 25 in the paint every night,
That should be put into a white background tweet or made into a new thread so everyone sees it. Calvin Watkins was correct, and Stein was just retweeting the info. Still suspect the meetings were mainly about Morey explaining in concrete terms what D'Antoni will expect, in a way that says, we want you back at $22m, if you're willing to adjust to the new system. Many on this board predicted that.
Nothing wrong with being direct about expectations, nor is it wrong for the player to say...no thanks. Dwight is not as good as Dwight thinks he is, so it is better that he move along and take his declining game to somewhere else. DD
Can you post the original link please? Can't find it by myself :/ And this leads me to think that Durant is not coming here. If Dwight would have opted in, we wouldn't have the money to sign Durant AND a pf which is something we need imo...am i wrong about the pf argument or everything in this post doesn't make sense? It seems a strange situation to me
I guess I don't care either way but I really hope Houston fans do not boo him. He gave us some great playoff performances and we just didn't have enough firepower (or luck) to overcome a good Warriors team last year and definitely this year. I think someone (maybe Clutch and Bima) should write an article/thread about why we should not Boo Dwight but ultimately leave it up to the casual fans at Toyota Center.
