I was agreeing with everything you said until I saw this: I don't think so. LJ's ability to play and defend 1-5 is beyond rare in the NBA. Only a small sample of players in the game have effected the opponents strategy like he does. Dwight was awesome in orlando (btw I live in orlando and saw a lot of his games here). He was a dominant force but it is not really comparable. I liked what I saw from Dwight last night as he showed signs of playing at a very high level. As for our Rockets I think his EFFECT will be profound because while he will have 2 major impacts. 1) while he is on the floor we get a huge scoring thread from the 5 and 2) with he and asik we will always have a defensive center on the floor. This does have the potential to propel us to the top.
The numbers would tend to agree. For example, if you look at RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus-- a stat aiming to measure a player's impact to a game's point differential per 100 possessions after adjusting to who else plays on the court), "Lakers Dwight" was a +5.5, still a damn good player ranked among the top 10 in the entire league, "Orlando Dwight" went up to +9.5, +9.7 and +8.8 in his last 3 seasons there-- these numbers had him ranked either 2nd or 1st in the entire NBA. http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ If you assume that he plays his normal starters minutes over the course of a season without missing too many games, this difference could mean as many as 6 to 8 extra wins if you look at the calculation done by Kevin Kerrigan, which attempts to translate RAPM into expected numbers of wins over replacement players. http://nbacouchside.com/2013/08/26/re-doing-work-already-done-with-better-results/ It would be difficult to find another change that could land the a team 6-8 extra wins over the course of a season according to this RAPM calculation.
When Dwight was in Orlando he was the second best player in the league. Better than Durant at the time, and could be compared (although not quite as good) to Lebron. If he is back to that level we will be in the finals.
A healthy Howard will have almost the impact of James or Durrant. He is that good. It has been discussed in serious analytical circles that ESPN's ranking of players http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9862025/2013-nba-player-rankings-1 that there should have been no player to score an eight plus other than James and Durrant. This is just to highlight how much more impact James and Durrant have on their respective teams. If Howard is healthy and happy he will deserve a ranking right up there with Durrant and James next fall. Paul, Harden etc. will be two steps below.
Right before his injury, the impact Dwight had on Magic was immensely underrated. Magic was a solid 3rd in EC when he started missing games with back problems. In 15 or so games, Magic dropped to 6th seed and became the 'bye' team entering post season. It means whoever played Magic got a bye. That's how bad Magic was without Dwight. Yes, it was all Dwight who single-handily carried a team of 'nobody' to the Finals.
Dwight can dominate certain aspects of the game. Lebron has a greater overall impact. He can take over the game and make all his teammates better.
I take issue with most of this. 1. Both Harden and Parsons are penetrators, and Beverley has it in smaller doses. Not everyone on the court needs to be a penetrator. We also need 3 point shooters. Morey himself said the decision to start Beverley had everything to do with fit......ie how he compliments and improves Harden and Howard. It may very well be that the lane would actually clog with Lin on the floor with Harden because there wouldn't be enough respected 3 point shooters to spread the floor. 2. Some of the "easy points" just changed from fast break to Dwight in the post. Dwight may not be Dream, but relative to Asik...he is Dream. 3. Asik and Howard played 13 minutes together. 13. They can focus on Harden all they want......Howard will eat them alive in the post and our 3 point shooters will drive the dagger in. Regarding your last comment.....there is a cost to giving up on offensive rebounds. It means you have to be uber-efficient with your shots, and it also restricts the kind of shots you can take. I can only think of two teams in the NBA that can play like this and win...SA and Miami.
I agree. Dwight and Shaq are the same kind of monster. I won't say Lebron is better than prime Shaq because no one can stop Shaq. Shaq gets triple or quadrouple teamed.
I will repost this from another thread: Dwight's post game is not, in any way, something that should be considered a strength. He averaged just .74 PPP posting up, ranked 121st in the league. That means that every team had FOUR players more adept than Dwight in post ups. I know what people gonna say next. But...but he was recovering from back surgery. Even at the height of his powers, Dwight was never all that good as a post up player. In '09-'10, he ranked 67th in post up play, and '10-'11, he ranked 56th. Dwight had always been an amazing player in spite of his post game, not because of it. With a decade experience in NBA, it would be incredibly foolish to expect Dwight to improve significantly from this point forward. Dwight Howard is what he is, and being a strong post up player is not who he is or will unlikely ever be. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=8343735&postcount=6 If you think we will get easy points from Dwight's post ups, embrace yourself for a big shock.
Exactly. For a reference point D-Mo averaged 1.05 PPP in post up opportunities last season, good for 5th in the league. But if it takes 5 post up shots a game to keep Howard happy I say give it to him.
Shaq is far better on offense than Dwight-- for one thing he doesn't turn the ball over much at all for a guy who lives in the paint while Dwight gets stripped quite often. Shaq also averaged like 30 ppg in his prime. However, Dwight is a better defender, especially compared to some of the heavier versions of Shaq. Dwight's mobility allows him to cover more ground than Shaq could once he got heavy as a Laker. Shaq was still pretty effective as a paint protector but he would not really come out of the paint to, for example, help contest shots by guard in a pick and roll.
Penetration is one of the very few aspects of "creating your own shot". Parsons is not a threat to penetrate. Bev is definitely not good at it either. Lin and Harden on the other hand rank in the top 20 as far as penetration in the NBA. If you look at the %Ast column in advanced stats you can easily see who leads the league in penetration.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but Dwight can equally take over the game and make all of the opposing players worse.
Well I think if people are wanting him to have post moves like Dream, or a shot like Ewing or footwork like Duncan, then yes you will say his offense is not good. I think a healthy Howard gets his offense in a different way. When he was in Orlando he had 30 and 40 pt games. You don't score over 25 pts by being a slouch on offense. He gets deep position and once he gets that it's pretty much over due to his athleticism and strength (when healthy). Another impact he has is getting your team into the bonus early in quarters due to teams having to foul him to prevent dunks in the paint. That is something that people don't realize will help us tremendously. I wont even mention the spacing he creates due to the attention defenses have to give him and offensive rebounds... So all of that to say, I think that is what is meant by being on LeBron's level as far as impacting the game. Wehn he is healthy and active (like he looked last night) he is a lot to handle on the floor.
A better comparison, as much as people will hate it, is Ben Wallace. Both are even undersized centers too. Although a healthy Dwight has a much better offensive game, his dominance still comes on the defensive end. Big Ben is also underrated, he was by far the best player on those championship teams even though Big Shot got the glory. Defense was what drove those teams and Wallace was the bus driver. He was the game changer for that team.
I really think Dwight will get close to 95% at least of what he used to be, physically. Herniated discs are one of the most debilitating injuries out there, and only toward the end of last season were we seeing anywhere near what Dwight is capable of.
Yep, if merely giving him opportunities in the post makes him key in more on the defensive end, well worth it obviously.
