Actually if you watched the training, Hakeem actually gives a lot of pointers on how to make the defender adjust to what you want to do. It's mostly about how to dictate the counters that defenders do and then counter that. He's passing on the offensive philosophy.
yes, i realize that he's giving them pointers. my point is, they are point-less (no puns intended). they don't actually use any of his advice in games. they never will. a lot of it is because their own moves and instincts are ingrained and it's just about impossible for them to change at this point in their careers, and another point is, their teams would have to change their entire offense to put these players in hakeem's role. it's all tomfoolery.
Smart move. Unlikely you will be able to add much to your game with just 1 or 2 sessions. Making this a series of summer tutorials will surely add at least a little bit of fluidity to Dwight's typically rigid game. Think about it this way: a guy with no post moves averaged 20+ppg on 55% shooting. He added one post move. If he adds another, and improves his understanding of how to carry himself in the post, is it not worth what he's paying for? Def worth it IMO. Don't really like the guy's attitude, but this is a smart move for his career, even if it won't benefit him much while being on the same team as Kobe+Nash+D'Antoni.
i could picture a hakeem dwight convo going something like this: hakeem: so do you want to join rockets dwight? dwight: no, i want to be a laker and live in LA hakeem: oh i see... if you come to rockets, i will train you, so you dont look like b**** ass ***** out there dwight:sign me up master splinter
lol sorry man, i'm just not a big DH12 fan. He can do a lot more but he just tries too hard to please everyone instead of just playing basketball.
Just about impossible would imply that it is possible albiet a very small percentage, with the percentage varied depending on perspective. So, the choice for Dwight would be to observe which instincts were conditioned or ingrained and whether they are beneficial to his growth or not. The point of life is growth...maybe, or is it just YOLO, or is YOLO spread across different lifetimes, and if they are, are they even correlated to one another. In either instance, growth seems to make YOLO optimal. So should Dwight simply give up since the odds are against him or go for the seemingly impossible with any tools available at his disposal. How do you go from good to great to legendary? Doing seemingly impossible feats? Here is a small list of things that are just about impossible: Making the NBA Being the first pick in the NBA draft Making the NBA straight from High School Starting the game of basketball at age 15 to becoming arguably the best two way big man in the game Here is an interesting quote I found from Hakeem Olajuwon's Wikipedia page which in turn credits Terry Blount from his Houston Chronicle article.
I was wondering why cant we keep both Asik and Dwight if DM wants to get him. Couldnt we move Asik to PF? or it just wouldnt work?
With DMo's current offensive skills (that spin move the other night looked pretty damn nice) and his height, I would love to see him train with Dream.
The lane would be clogged since neither of them can shoot a jump shot, therefore Harden and Lin would have less space to work with.
this quote doesn't really correlate whatsoever. dwight howard already plays against the best competition in the world. and hakeem wasn't out on that court doing moses malone imitations, he was playing his own game. if cole aldrich spent a month with hakeem, a month with michael jordan, a month with lebron james...he's still going to be the exact same quality of player that he was beforehand. just because you do fun little impressions of players' moves that are captured on video, does not mean you have any chance of applying them with any sort of effectiveness or regularity in game situations. howard doesn't have the instinct and grace that hakeem has. it's not his game. as another poster alluded to, he is twice the size of everybody he plays against but has a borderline worthless low post game. if the guy hasn't figured out how to use his body to his advantage and back players down by now, i'm pretty damn sure dream shakes and fadeaways and pivots and reverse pivots etc. are all well beyond the skillset that he will ever have.
Like you alluded to in the beginning of your post, Hakeem and Moses Malone have completely different games and arguably a different pre-ingrained skill-set. Yet, Akeem was able to utilize the knowledge that Moses Malone acquired that made him successful with his personal style, and grew it into something of his own identity. I'm fairly certain Moses Malone didn't impart his knowledge of the dream shake and fadeaways to groom Akeem, but according to that specific quote, I am sure he acquired some knowledge which helped him to realize a dream shake option. So can Dwight do what Hakeem eventually did? Odds are against him, but to not attempt to use that resource would be foolish for him. And are odds against due to skill-set to size ratio or rather, due to Hakeem being arguably the best big man to play the game? {insert KAJ, Wilt, Russell} Some Pre-draft measurements: Shaquille O'Neal Height w/o shoes - 7'1" Weight - 303 (obviously pre-draft) Dwight Howard Height w/o shoes - 6'9" Weight - 240 (also pre-shoulders) Hakeem Olajuwon I couldn't find pre-draft measurements on Hakeem. Here's what wikipedia has. Listed Weight - 255 ----- Here's a video featuring Olajuwon's rookie year highlights which may shed some light on his inherent skill-set: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OSHwPJTgpPw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> If the embedding doesn't work here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSHwPJTgpPw
You don't have to play Asik & Howard at the same time, though. Having no defensive bigs on our bench is a big problem. If you sign Howard, Asik would work perfectly well as backup C for the next two years. You probably can't afford to keep him, but we get two title runs and then sign & trade him using the Bird rights.
This is the exact thing that people said when the Lakers teamed him up with steve nash/ dantoni, run the floor, easy baskets, etc. It hasn't happened.
It's not Dwight's fault his team decided they were going to run the 7 Second Offense with a coach who doesn't know how to do anything else with a team that is only younger than the Knicks.
