Hakeem was a power player who turned into more of a finesse player. He knows what it's like to be both. I doubt they'll try to turn Dwight into a finesse player, but adding finesse to his game will definitely help him.
I doubt the Rockets will have him work on a lot of things. Dwight is already a dominate center in the league, if he adds just ONE new offensive thing to his game it will be enough (for now). If you look back to how raw Hakeem was when entered the league, he added just one thing to his game every year and the rest is history. Dwight only has to focus on One element (two if you count free-throws) of his game and I think we will see huge gains on the court. Kobe and Lebron learned just one aspect of Dreams offensive skill set after a couple days of instruction and we saw the huge benefit the subsequent season. Shaq one of the most dominate big man to ever play only had 2 maybe 3 moves max. and again I disagree that that one week a couple summers ago provided little for Dwight. When he came back the next season he had a back to the basket game (not a go to b2tb game but still) that he was never taught all his years in Orlando training under Ewing.
The biggest (and most realistic) gift Dream can offer Dwight is the mentality of a true, dominant big man. If Dwight protects the paint, rebounds the ball and plays to HIS strengths on offense with confidence, he can expect to hear his name mentioned with the HOF centers.
I remember that according to reports, Howard supposedly has always shown a much wider skillset in practice, but revert back to his power ways in-games. So I think people are underestimating Howard's talent. The important issue is how to have confidence in this talent so he will continue to work on them in actual games, even when it's not working well. So in this sense, I think having two premier post up bigs in McHale and Hakeem will help. When things get tough in actual games, they will be able to help him go through the learning process and not giving up.
it shouldnt be a surprise the guys who benefited the most from his instruction were wings - lebron and kobe(who pretty much gave hakeem a small business by starting this train with him thing) since hakeem was pretty much a guard in a centers body. mgcee and amare-umm yeah. dwights post game is what it is, its ok, or as JVG calls it "rudimentary" he doesnt like to hold the ball up high because he usually goes for that hook shoot, it messes up his rythym but also leaves him prone to the strip. dream had it high cause he was ready to shoot fallaways or any counter. anyways i dont see it improving if at all, dwights sucess will be based on his health. The idea that mchale and dream will suddenly get him to play well in the post when he spent a decade with ewing and stan van gundy is ridiculous. It suggests those guys sucked and held him back. hakeem knows mariano rivera's cutter. just cause he teaches it to you doesnt mean you'll know how to throw it effectively if at all.
The video of one of their past workouts just got uploaded to Dream's channel. He kept fading away lol. Whatever, we'll see this season. [youtube]1eFvPSWfDoc[/youtube]
In the video Hakeem seems to be pivoting on his left foot while Howard pivots on his right. In my very inexpert opinion, this seems to be messing up Howard's rhythm as he tries to emulate Hakeem's moves.
Dwight needs to play some soccer to improve his footwork. Dream has great footwork from his days playing soccer and other sports. Duncan swam hence he has great fundamentals. Don't know Mchales background but I bet it involved another sport.
If all we had to play was offense, I'd take Shaq's big ass and his total of two moves over Dream's dozens. With Dwight's physical advantages, that's all he really needs, but what he needs more than anything is to get his positioning and fundamentals of it (such as where he holds the ball, puts his feet and looking identical on either move) down.
The way I see it, if Chuck Hayes can become a capable offensive player around the basket the way he did while he was here, Dwight should easily be able to average 22-25 point per game getting easy buckets and using his height, size, and improved footwork to maneuver in the paint (i.e. develop some crafty moves from up to 10 feet.
Shaq actually had really good footwork, despite his only two shots being 1-handed slam and 2-handed slam. That's a good model for Dwight's game. I think in-season training with McHale and Dream will have a much bigger effect than the summer training sessions. Dwight's the kind of player who needs to be coached, not just taught.
Nice post and good catch on the fade. I'm having trouble not cringing when I see this video and I see Dwight fade back even after Hakeem tells him to cut that crap out.
Day 3 <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Day 3 begins. Olajuwon focusing on teaching the fundamentals of ideal low-post technique. <a href="http://t.co/0hgnDikKqy">pic.twitter.com/0hgnDikKqy</a></p>— Jason Friedman (@JasonCFriedman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonCFriedman/statuses/367686931364069376">August 14, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Now Dwight goes to work attempting to implement Dream's lessons. <a href="http://t.co/qWBqBTbvNp">pic.twitter.com/qWBqBTbvNp</a></p>— Jason Friedman (@JasonCFriedman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonCFriedman/statuses/367687362186190848">August 14, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
