Dwight is the reason why he doesn't get the ball. Put the ball in the basket and he will get the ball. Plain and simple.
It's just 7 games lol. He has shown flashes and the team isn't even close to gelling yet. Give it some time. We have a nice 5 game stretch coming here where we all can get our confidence up.
The most annoying thing about howard is that he has not improved the rockets defensively. Offensively, he is not good enough to attract double teams plus he is a high turnover player in the post.
Let's compare Dwight Howard's stats from his '08-'09 year when his team got to the NBA Finals: Per 36 minute stats: 2009: 20.7 pts, 13.9 rebounds, 2.9 blocks, 59% free throws, 57% fg % 2013: 18.1 pts, 14.0 rebounds, 1.5 blocks, 49% free throws, 55% fg % Really, the only difference is that his free throw percentage is ever lower. If his free throw percentage was back up to 59% like it was in 2009, he probably would have a few extra points per game more, pushing his PPG up to about 20 where it was in 2009. Plus, in 2009 he was getting 1 more FG attempt per game. His blocks are down a bit, but he had 2.5 last year with the Lakers, so I'm chalking that up to small sample size. Long story short, Dwight is the same player he was in 2009.
I just did the math. If he was shooting .592 from the line like he was in 2009, he would have 1 extra free throw made per game. That's 1 extra point per game. So 19.1 points, 14.0 rebounds per game this year. Same Dwight.
I never realized how short Dwight was (for a Center) until he came to us. He got trapped by DeAndre and Blake quite a few times below the basket and didn't have enough height or hops to explode over their heads and get the shot/dunk off. He barely got calls and sometimes just got straight up rejected. In one instance, Crawford even tied him up as he tried to bring the ball from his hips to his shoulders.
That Orlando PnR Dwight will never come back. The new Dwight would rather force his way of playing in low post thinking he still could be Shaq.
Give him the minutes he had in Orlando and guards who know how to pass the ball and he would be 20+/14. Basically, the numbers he put up before the back injury. I don't know if he lost two, three or zero inches on his vertical or a fraction of a second on his full court sprint but the guy is a freak athlete and still has more than enough athletisicism to dominate the paint.
I think Dwight is fine from my physical standpoint. Really the only thing is he is going to have to accept the PnR more if he wants the team to be successful. The limited times we have run it this year it literally has always resulted in a score or a foul.
This. I have no stats but if someone can run the usage rate of PnR Dwight ran in Orlando compared to post-ups, it probably would be the opposite of what he's doing this season.
MCHALE won 45 games last year with a MVP Harden, playmaking Lin, effort of asik, great team player parsons, a hardworking bev, mature Garcia, a flawed but play hard big in g. smith etc. with growth, more chemistry & mchales run & gun system with more situational plays, I think it's safe to say they could have won 50 this year with same players. As they had more time to gel know where players like the ball and how to play together. This only teams we could not beat was pacers & heat. We had some good flashes against top teams in west spurs, okc, clippers... & ran past power houses in east BULLS NETS KNICKS was thinking maybe we need to cut him some slack, Morey went and got Howard and Mchale changed his whole system in attempt to make Howard happy and get him involved in the offense. He went away from his run & gun offense to a half court offense with Howard. (completely different scheme) It may work may not but he had to give it a try. If he is fired it will just look like Howard ran him out if u ask me. When he did what the organization wanted him to do, incorporate the new STAR player in a offense, while dream was brought in to help Howard with his post moves etc. He did his job. Now TT may be his fault but Morey could be wanting him to start him for trade value but no one knows the truth. Yes Mchale needs to work on his timeouts, playcalling but he did a good job in motivating these young players last year to get to the playoffs after which was basically their first year together. Let's see how things playout but understand he was put in a tricky coaching situation hisself. Doc & pop had same teams for year same offense, even doc is using the same plays he ran with Boston with clippers. Mchale was forced to change it all after one year with harden, parsons, Lin, asik what do you guys think ?????
Keyword: "Last Night" That was probably the most PnR Dwight's ran in 1 game more than he's ever ran the whole season thus far. Why doesn't he do it more often? Coach or someone from his team probably slapped D12 on the back of the head last night saying "enough of this throwing it down to you in the low post crap, we're going to run PnR for you coz instead coz it's your bread and butter." Let's see if the PnR with Dwight continues or he'll start getting complacent and revert back to just keep throwing the ball down low.
Agree. When Dwight came, dreams of Harden/Dwight PnR or Lin/Dwight PnR, and days of the 2009 Orlando Magic stretch high offense combined with our run & gun filled the air. Reality, we don't even do that. We now run a half-court post offense catered to a center not known for his half-court post offense (the irony).
