Of course all of the Rockets' problems last year were not due to Dwight and JB. Ty Lawson totally forgetting how to play basketball, early season / lingering injuries to key players like Harden, Jones, DMo and Beverley, and a firing McHale prematurely were out of their control but how they handled some of the problems and how it affected the team are totally fair to blame Howard and JB. On JB: After a month or so of him in the head coaching position, it became clear that he wasn't ready to be a NBA head coach. When the coach constantly mismanages timeouts in late game situations and over-relies on his veteran players when those players were terrible, it is pretty clear that the coach is in over his head. There's a reason why JB went back to being an assistant head coach because even he knows, he wasn't ready. Of course, Morey and Les should take a good chunk of the blame too for firing McHale too early in the season and saying that JB would be their head coach for the remainder of the season but JB's inability to manage the team and locker room (more on that later), coupled with how he refused to play other guys (McDaniels, maybe Harrell) for players that were awful that year and its not hard to see how we lost so many games. On Howard: I think we all saw how Dwight's demeanor changed mid-season. I remember making tons of comments on here about how Dwight's effort is extremely low and that he is taking himself out of games. His comments after the season about how he would "take himself out of games if he felt like he wasn't involved in the offense" confirm what most of us already knew. To me, that's inexcusable for the highest paid player and self-supposed team leader to just quit if he didn't get his post touches, and it was very hypocritical of him to say after every lose that "the team needs to stick together and not let individual goals get in the way of winning" when he was the one who was doing exactly that! Upon further inspection, Dwight Howard was getting his post-touches (one of the league leaders) but he just sucked at them. More times than not, a post touch for Dwight Howard ended in a missed shot, missed free throws or a turnover than a score. Everyone knows Dwight is not a good post-up option, but him in his own delusion. My theory about how it all came about and how JB is involved is this... When McHale was fired and JB took over, Dwight saw this as an opportunity for himself to assert his desire for more post-up attempts in a contract year. Say what you want to say about McHale, but he was able to get Dwight into accepting his role on the team as primarily pick and roll big man with minimal post-ups. Just look at the 2015 playoffs and Dwight even said he would take a lesser role for the better of the team's success that season. That all went out the window when McHale was sacked. I think Dwight tried to stick to his role at first but when we kept losing, he quickly changed course and started demanding more offensive opportunities to JB and Morey. I think Morey and JB, against their better judgement, gave the okay but once it became obviously clear that Dwight was even worst in the post, Morey had to play bad guy and say no to Dwight. This is where that mid-season conversation about how Dwight claims that he went to Morey about being more involved in the offense and Morey said "No, we don't want you involved" takes into place. I doubt Morey actually said "we don't want you involved" (probably more like "we don't want you involved in more post-ups"), but the affect was just the same and Howard took it personally, started to sulk and let it effect his play on the court. And this is where the problems we had began to enlarge. Defensively, instead of Howard cleaning up guys mistakes, he let it go. So many times last season, Dwight Howard was absent on defense. You would look at all the layups opposing teams were getting with Dwight on the floor and it was puzzling. I know our perimeter defense was bad but the ease that opposing team were getting easy shots with Howard on the floor was alarming. Offensively, it was one less person Harden could rely on to score thus putting more pressure on him. How many games did Dwight not even shoot 5 times? People want to blame Harden or coaching for not involving Howard more, but Howard is more than capable of getting more shot attempts for himself via offensive rebounds and running the break for easy baskets. Honestly, the 5 FGA don't account for possessions ending in turnovers.
I love Howard, but I feel like the Hawks should made a play for Okafor. Say what you will about his defense, he's only in his 2nd season, they need a guy who could score down the stretch. A player that could make teams play on their heels. Dwight will be bring the defense and star power to Atlanta, but it's more of trade off than anything. The Hawks lose Horford's diversified offense, shot ability, and underrated defense for Howard's rebounding, defensive intensity, and his explosiveness. They are still a 2nd-4th best team in the East, which is good for them .... to keep moving up the letter pole. They are like the 2nd most consistent team in the NBA, outside of the Spurs. I say 3rd, because if we counted any team featuring LeBron, they'd be 2nd, easily. Still that's pretty good for a team that was atrocious from 2000-06 and was consistently cannon-fodder, when ever they were in the playoff picture.
I'm not saying that we won't miss those things you mentioned but really??? He was playing against none, zero, nada of the Cavs starters and most of those guys won't even be on the team. They sat literally everyone. He should look good against them he's a HOF player. But his first preseason game against actual competition he was what we saw last year imo. He got blocked under the rim and couldn't finish around the hoop when a big body was on him. He was not good. Dwight doesn't have that juice anymore and he's really not that good defending the pick and roll anymore. Yes he's still one of the best rebounders and still an upper level rim protector but he's not some majors game changer on that end of the court were you can just ignore the bad offense anymore. TBH the rockets are better off adding nene, Anderson and Gordon than retaining Howard and adding only one of those guys. Not to mentions Capela is actually better than Howard as a roll man in pick and roll and also knows how to pass out to the corners which I have still yet to ever see Dwight do. I'm not a Dwight hater but I'm also a realist he's not a game changer anymore and he's not worth paying 24 mil for 3 years.
Not being the solution to the problem was a problem, however. But when Harden lights up the Sharks, it's different? Sure sounds like a Dwight hater. Spoiler Nice try. If Mozgov gets 16 mil/year and Anderson 20 mil/year, 24 mil/year for Dwight is the last thing from outlandish. And you know he will be that in Atlanta? You have a crystal ball or cyberx power?
Well, we had no problem turning several corners with Dwight last year. I'll give him that. btw: what exactly are you predicting with the "wakeup call" comment.
Hate to say it but I kinda wish he was still on the team If he took the right amount of money Bev/Gordan/Harden/Ryno/Dwight could've been a power house on offense. I'll kinda miss his D too
Wouldnt surprise me if he did well this year. He's venn told he cant do this and cant do that all his career. Now that he's enabled and believes in, it'll either be a spectacular success or failure.
I don't think Dwight was a cancer causing all the issues, so I'm predicting we're gonna have exactly the same issues as last year except with better shooting and worse rebounding and defense. I also think we're gonna be under the Vegas win total
I saw the highlights today of Dwight's game on Monday. He does look good. He may fit in well there in a system that preaches defense and can potentially shoot from the outside. As for the Rockets, I don't exactly know how they improve defensively when their team is so Harden-dependent, but it does look like they're going to be all offense, all the time. Howard just would not have been satisfied in a system like that.
That mid-range bank shot looks good. I wish more bigs would use it, especially Dwight whose shot looks so robotic.
We'll miss Dwight down low on defense in a lot of match ups, but not his horrific free throw shooting, or his frustrating attempts at being Dream on the other end, so yeah, Howard won't be the speed bump he so often was in our offense, in my opinion. Wouldn't surprise me if Dwight steps up his game when the Hawks play Houston, though.
The only thing I can hope for the Rockets defense is that with this coach, they will have at least some sort of organized system. Last year it looked like pick up game defense. If they can work together at least a little a bit and as a team, it could be somewhat of an improvement. It may not be as much of an improvement as they need if their only defensive system is set to start their offense. And I don't think that kind of a system is the best fit for Dwight. I think Dwight still has some game left. I think he wanted to win while he was here, and played like it (despite some boneheaded plays and frustration at times). I'm sure he'll do the same there.
We have the next best thing: history. If it happened with the Magic, the Lakers, and the Rockets, is it really far-fetched to think the exact same thing will happen with his now 4th team?
I am aware that is the idea, but the LA and Rockets situation was not just Dwight being a cancer. But I don't want to argue semantics, I know what you are saying: yes, a he has a higher probability than, say, trevor ariza.
The issue is ... Lawson, Dwight, Parsons (without the injury), Lin (excluding when under Byron Scott), and I guess T Jones will also, play better post McHale/JBB. Basically Rockets wasted 3+ years under McHale, who doesn't know how to play to his players' strength.
Very good preseason Imagine what the Rockets would have been the last 3-4 seasons if he had a decent coach
