Howard doesn't play defense and I sometimes think he thinks he is a star and shoots too much. That's why.
look at our record. look at his playoff performance with us. look at his Win/Loss history for all his teams. take off your sunglasses.
yes, this is what happens when you got paid 100million dollars in your career. you think you are a star cause you get paid like one.
There are alot of players out there who are making alot more money and are not playing or have stopped working hard. Howard is working hard to make the team better.
First of all, we went on our best run of the season AFTER Howard got hurt. Sure, he was pretty much on fire at the time, but we still got better without him. Padgett replaced him without a problem. Secondly, his jumpshot is in no way better than decent. I would say decent at best. The reason why he seems to be a staple of the offense is because the other team desparately wants him to shoot instead of Yao or Tmac. Every shot he takes is wide open, and he can still only muster a mediocre, if not bad, shooting percentage for a power forward (in large part because he is an absolutely terrible finisher under the basket). Our opponents are perfectly content with him shooting all game long, and probably consider every shot he takes a good defensive possession. Plug in almost any starting PF in the league, and they would hit just as many of those jumpers. Also, Juwan's stroke is so ugly he makes Udonis Haslem look like Larry Bird. The thing that I dislike most about our situation is that our fate is pretty much in Juwan's hands in any particular game. If he's clanking his shot, our offense just does not function well. And, he can't make contributions in any other facet of the game. I'm really hoping we sign James so we can go small as a often as possible. Give me Rafer, James, Tmac, Battier, Yao.
We criticize Howard because he sucks, and the stats support it. Don't by into JVG's propaganda, Swift was NOT worse than Howard. Swift has been a GOOD player over the course of his career, with seasons of 17, 18, and 19 PER before. Suddenly he dropped to about 14.8 PER upon joining the Rockets, and I have to think that JVG deserves some blame for that. Still, 14.8 is NOT that bad (15 is league average). In comparison, Juwan had a lousy 12.6 PER. Juwan doesn't get it done on EITHER end of the floor. His lack of man defense is well noted. In rebounding, he was 50th in rebounding percentage out of all qualifying players. You basically stop seeing PF/Cs on that list by 60, so Juwan is one of the worst rebounding big men. And finally, his shot blocking is unbelievably, inexcusably bad. Juwan got all of 8 blocks this season (5 in 2005!). Compare that to Rafer Alston, nearly doubled that with 15 blocks while playing PG. Yes, Juwan is THAT bad. Oh, but he can shoot, right? Synergy (link provided only to cite source, the free trial has ended) said that he had a terrific jumper. However, his overall scoring was poor, and I believe that site said that 78% of the NBA was more efficient at scoring than Juwan was! Even if you're a good jumpshooter, jumpshots are inherently low-percentage. Other big men can score in the paint, dunk, and get to the line, things that Howard does not do. So, in conclusion, Howard sucks hard on BOTH ends of the court. While that is enough reason to bash on him, the fact that he seems to be one of JVG's pet players, getting starter's minutes over better PFs like Swift and Hayes makes it even worse.
I don't think Juwon Howard is a bad player at all. Yup, you heard me right. Now I admit he ain't great. Howard works hard, never gives an excuse when he has a bad game. I have never heard him demand more playing time, b**** about more touches or or how the media makes him look. Bottom line Howard is a great "TEAM" player. Sets a good screen, has a decent outside shooting touch, not afraid to bang inside or take a charge. What do you want from him? He's not gonna score 20 a night on this team. You can't expect him to rebound like Ben Wallace, that's just not his game. What you do get is hustle, spirit and a high basketball IQ. I hate comparing players 'coz it's not fair to compare Howard with Swift, as much as it doesn't make sense to compare Dirk and Udonis Haslem. But for the sake of argument, I do agree with the post/thread where it was asked if Swift had negative trade value ( or at least zero ). He is the anti-JHo. So Talented, so gifted athletically but has no drive, low "basketball" IQ and looks like he's lost when he's playing. I sometimes wonder if he realizes that you get 2 points for a layup OR a dunk. Or that turnovers are bad. Stromile has rocks for hands, how many time did he lose the ball in traffic, or not catch a great feed to him in the paint. On this team where VanGundy asks so much from players in terms of effort and heart, I don't see why people are up in arms about him leaving. Chuck Hayes is undersized, not nearly as talented and ain't exactly a track athlete in terms of speed, but he got more minutes that Swift,Why? Coz he hustled and gave all he had, just like Weatherspoon but younger. If you can't beat out Hayes for a position in the rotation, you must be doing something wrong.
he's not so bad, i dont hate him lol but he's not the kind of PF we need at all (no defense, no rebound, no blocks) and he's overpaid ...
this is a bloody brilliant post, nobody hates Juwan the person but to a successful finals team we need more at the 4
People don't criticize Juwan the person. They criticize Juwan the performer, who sucks on the court. More bpg than a PG? Maybe score in the paint or get to the line a little, enough so that he's not in the bottom third of the league in offensive efficiency? "that's just not his game?" TOO BAD! Juwan is a PF, rebounding is one of his duties. This is an EXTREMELY poor argument. It is fair to compare Juwan and Swift, because they play the same position, and competed for minutes on the same team. And both Hayes and Swift couldn't "beat out" Juwan, and in some games RYAN BOWEN for minutes. They were both better than Juwan, but who got to play was entirely JVG's decision. He chose to play his pet players.
I don 't hate Juwan, but I think Houston should sign a new starting PF. When he played at Washington, he was a pretty good PF but times have changed and the Rockets need a better PF. I can live with the idea Juwan stays in Houston as back up PF, but I hope we could trade him.
I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble who thinks Swift was good for us by looking at his per-minute stats, but they are extremely misleading. Swift only played when his head was in the game. In the middle of the 1st quarter, Swift would come in. It usually took about 3-4 minutes to tell whether he was going to be productive or if he was going to chase butterflies. If he was missing assignments, jumping at head fakes, making stupid fouls, walking up the court, and fumbling passes, he came out and that meant only a few minutes of 0.0 PER. If he was better, he stayed in and it helped his PER. Howard maybe the worst starting PF in the Western Conference, but he was leaps and bounds better than his primary backup last year.
basically both howard and swift were just avg pf and borderline starter material. Starting howard again next season basically tells me the rockets are accepting the weakness in the lineup and have no intention to improve the pf position. Bottom line, howard gonna get killed by most pf in the league and his backups arent any better either.
It's not the PF's that worry me. All the guards making wild forrays into the lane worries me. Juwan stepping out of the way and letting Yao take the foul worries me (it has happened before). Juwan's 11 shots per game worry me.
You make a valid point here -- PER can be skewed for backups who's minutes per game are based on how well they happen to be playing. One need only look at the following chart: http://www.82games.com/0506/0506HOU1.HTM Only 24 times did the Rockets score more than opponents with Swift on the court, while they were outscored 39 times. That makes for a W-L record of 24-39 (38.1%). That's not very good, at all. This indicates that while, overall, Swift's per minute numbers look pretty good, most of the games his performance was probably lackluster. Now, was JVG too quick-triggered in taking him out? Maybe if Swift consistently got 25-30 minutes a game then the consistent performance would follow. Who knows? But look at Juwan's W-L record. It's even worse! The only semi-regular player on the team with a worse W-L was Ryan Bowen. 27-52 for Juwan, yikes. Amazingly, rookie Hayes has only one less "win", despite playing in far few games. With Hayes on the court, the Rockets scored more than the opponent 26 times, and they were only outscored 11 times.
You've answered it right there. For all of Swifts faults Howard was worst and he wasn't in the dog house and had a coach who was praising his work ethic. Could you imagine if Swift had a little bit of praise from his coach and some playing time. THe bottom line is Howard played almost no D, blocked less shots than Luther Head does not know how to pass to an open Yao, has no trade value and is only going to get worst. Where as Swift is still Young and athletic, had his worst year under Van Gundy and with the right coaching could and probably will at least be as good as he once was if not better which if nothing else gives him more trade value than JHO. So who do you include in the trade JHO or Swift. It seems like a no brainer to me.
