A lot of what has been discussed with Dwight Howard and his free-throws is his inability to make them. This thread looks at it from another angle. The notion that the ball finds the open shot means the ball moves until there is an open shot. At the post, Dwight can overwhelm his attacker 1v1 on sheer athleticism. In order to defend him, the opposing team will have to collapse creating open shooters. This is where the ball needs to swing and find the open men. Dwight rarely does this - averaging about 1 assist per game (tied for 13th in the league amongst centers). The problem with not passing out to the open perimeter shooter is that he gets fouled, and he sucks at shooting foul shots. http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/assists/sort/turnovers/position/centers/order/false Given how bad he is at shooting foul shots, his unwillingness to pass to the perimeter shooters becomes an incredibly inefficient offensive strategy. On top of that, his forcing his own shot results in him having the most turnovers of any big men in the league (in contrast, the four bigs with the most turnovers after Dwight all have twice as many assists as Dwight). Sure, that's not to say he doesn't score - he does, obviously. But he could help the team more and just move the damn ball. Lock if discussed.
I saw him turn the ball over a couple of times passing out of the post last night, so I think he's trying. But I'd rather him make a power move to the basket and get fouled than him turn the ball over passing out of the post.
In order for the inside/out game to work, we need to have set post plays for howard... more than what he is getting.
'A lot of what has been discussed with Dwight Howard and his free-throws is his inability to make them.' You don't say?
I think it's something that he needs to do more work on and the coaching staff has to put him in a position where he can be successful doing that. That's synergy right - where we are forcing the defense to pick their poison. Right now, they know what the poison they are getting and have put together an antidote (zone defense) - in fact, the inside stickiness some times taste like elixir to them (in particular, late fourth quarter).
McHale himself was a great example of inside stickiness. He never was a good post passer. Fortunately for him and his teams, he was so devastating with his length, footwork, post moves, and touch, that he was able to get by (to the tune of the Hall of Fame) without needing to pass. Howard does not have the luxury of those attributes.
On the flip side... In order for Howard's post plays to work, he needs to make more FT's and pass the ball out of double/triple teams more often. More than what he's doing.
http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/game-day-rockets-knicks Credit to Dwight - made a concerted effort to pass out of the post yesterday. Great ball movement. Season high in assists with six. #dwightreadsmythread!
Interesting numbers on Dwight offense. (They are RAW numbers without any in-depth analysis) Postup efficiency: 0.57 PPP Number of postups: 93 Points from 93 possessions: 53 points Team synergy efficiency: 0.95 ppp (points/possession) Team Efficiency w/o D12 postups: 0.98 ppp Points difference between Dwight postup and team average offensive possession: -0.41 ppp Total difference (10 games): -38 points Points difference/game: -3.8 point/game Pythagorean Wins for -3.8 points/game? Projected to be -10 games for the season!
