I just took a quick, simple look at all the champions going back to Jordan's first title, and more often than not, the champion had 3 or more good players (15+ PER). And I don't think I have to tell you that the 80s Celtics and Lakers had a lot of good players. Here are the quality players on each championship team, excluding guys who barely played (under 1,000 minutes). Teams which were crap all around and appear to have been carried by only one or two stars are bolded. 1991 Chicago Bulls: Jordan (31.6), Pippen (20.6), Horace Grant (17.6) 1992 Chicago Bulls: Jordan (27.7), Pippen (21.5), Horace Grant (20.6) 1993 Chicago Bulls: Jordan (29.7), Pippen (19.2), Horace Grant (17.5) 1994 Houston Rockets: Hakeem (25.3), Otis Thorpe (16.1) 1995 Houston Rockets: Hakeem (26), Drexler (22.1), Kenny Smith (16.2), Sam Cassell (15.9) 1996 Chicago Bulls: Jordan (29.4), Pippen (21.0), Kukoc (20.4), Kerr (15.2) 1997 Chicago Bulls: Jordan (27.8), Pippen (21.3), Kukoc (20.2), Kerr (15.6) 1998 Chicago Bulls: Jordan (25.2), Pippen (20.4), Kukoc (17.3) 1999 San Antonio Spurs: Duncan (23.2), Robinson (24.9) 2000 LA Lakers: Shaq (30.6), Kobe (21.7), Glen Rice (16.2) 2001 LA Lakers: Shaq (30.2), Kobe (24.4) 2002 LA Lakers: Shaq (29.7), Kobe (23.2) 2003 San Antonio Spurs: Duncan (26.9), Robinson (17.8), Parker (16.5), Malik Rose (16.1) 2004 Detroit Pistons: Rasheed Wallace (18.8)*, Okur (18.3), Billups (18.6), Ben Wallace (17.3), Rip Hamilton (16.8) 2005 San Antonio Spurs: Duncan (27.0), Ginobili (22.3), Parker (18.0) 2006 Miami Heat: Wade (27.6), Shaq (24.4), Mourning (19.4), Jason Williams (15.0) *I included Rasheed because even though he didn't play that much with the team during the regular season (having only arrived via mid-season trade), he took over the starter and received the majority of PF minutes during the playoffs. I would also like to point out that "quality" players aren't limited to just these stars and good players. If your fourth+ best players are around 14 PER while your opponents' are pure scrubs, you have superior depth and that will help. I won't go back and list all these players for each team, but I'll name a couple right here: Jordan's first 3-peat team had B.J. Armstrong, the 1994 Rockets (one of the bolded teams) had Horry and Kenny Smith (both 14.2), the 2003 Spurs had Stephen Jackson (14.5) and Ginobili (14.7), and the 2006 Heat had Antoine Walker (14.4). And of course, the second Bulls 3-peat had Rodman, whose PER was horrible (since it mostly measures offense, and his sucked), but was a dominant rebounder who supposedly had an amazing effect on team defense. The 2006-2007 Rockets will have...Yao (25.9), T-Mac (22.2), and Hayes (18.2). Battier had a PER of 14.8 but is a great defender and has a tremendous +/-, so I guess you can count him as a "good" player. But T-Mac is an injury concern, and Hayes might not even play that much at all (Juwan will probably start, with Battier sliding to PF in spurts). Then you have to consider that players 5-12 suck, probably worst than most other teams. I seriously doubt this team has what it takes to win it all. If T-Mac and Yao stay healthy then I can see them winning ~50 games before being bounced in the first or second round by the Spurs, Mavs, or Suns. Of course stars are most important. However, HOW is this a justification of Juwan? The guy sucks, plain and simple. And no, Houston's roster is not stacked enough to be so confident in the face of crappiness on the roster. There is no reason to be content about Juwan. Even if the team can't acquire another PF, it would do well just to bench him and let Battier and Hayes play the majority of the minutes.
1993-1994: As the only Houston player to start all 82 games in 1993-94, did the dirty work on the Rockets' front line ... While teammate Hakeem Olajuwon was having an MVP season, ended up ranked third in the league in field-goal percentage (.561) and 15th in rebounding (10.6 rpg), setting a personal single-season high for rebounds in his 10th NBA season ... Also tallied 14.0 points per game, second on the club to Olajuwon ... On 1/20 at Denver, blistered the Nuggets for 24 points, 20 rebounds and three steals in a career-high 54 minutes ... On 3/17 he beat up the Golden State Warriors for 21 points, 21 rebounds, three assists and two steals ... Also became the 54th player in NBA history to grab 7,000 rebounds in a career ... Thorpe and Olajuwon are the only active teammates to have reached that mark ... After winning the Midwest Division championship, Houston advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1986 ... The Rockets then took home the title after a seven-game victory over the New York Knicks ... Averaged 11.3 points and 9.9 rebounds in 23 postseason games.
The question is not whether Howard could start for other teams. The question is he the right starter for the Rockets. Personally, I say "no". But that is because I think Battier should start at the 4 and Tmac to stay at the 3. But this plan mainly hinges on Snyder (the only big 2 we got not Tmac) playing well. I like Hayes for spots, but I seriously doubt he is ready to start, or probably ever will be. Short hustle type PFs with limited offensive skills don't usually make good starters, and 13 MPG of productivity in the off the bench hustle role does against mainly back-up players does not mean the guy can be effective as a starter just because moneyball's extrapolation to 30 minutes says so. If Snyder plays well Howard should get plenty of minutes in the back-up 4 and 5 spots. He goes from a barely servicable starting PF whose slowness works against Yao to a solid 4/5 back-up that gives us a different look (a more girthy 4 for when Battier is overmatched do to size or offensive minded 5). He is overpayed for that role, but that doesn't mean he could not be an important contributor. Again, I am much more comfortable with Battier/Howard/Hayes mixing and matching at the 4 spot than what we got either at PG or SG. Further, PG and SG tended to be much easier to upgrade or find diamonds in the rough (maybe JL3, VS) than at PF. Good rebounding, good shooting, good defending all around 4s usually earn 10 mil a season and cost a ton to get. Until we luck into one Howard is part, but not the biggest part, of our solution. A much easier upgrade is Alston or possibly Snyder/Head.
....and it's hard to have rational conversations with people who think what Howard did 12 years ago is relevant to his value today, LOL. Unless you invent a time machine, this line of argument is worthless, so let me know when you do.
Here's a funny thing I found: Al Harrington is the "it" free agent at the moment who his expected to sign for 6 years $57 mil. Some fans on this board are clamoring for Rockets to sign him... Here is a website with some interesting stats (per 40 min, TS%, etc) about Al: http://basketball-reference.com/players/h/harrial01.html Scroll down to the bottom for "similarilty scores", as in which players Mr. Harrington is most similar to, statistically, in each of his seasons... At age 24 and 25 (his last two seasons) guess who he is most similar to? Hmm... makes you think, doesn't it.
It makes you think....that in 10 years, Harrington will be cashing in like Howard is, while contributing very little? That is indeed quite possible....but whether or not Harrington can make a living off of his reputation, rather than his production (or lack therof) isn't really all that relevant to Howard's suckiness.
Well, i wont compare simply because Harrington never robbed anyone in his career for a 100 million dollar contract
I can't speak for anybody else, but I would be pretty happy to have a 26 year old Juwan Howard going into next season.
Believe it or now, the 33 year old Juwan Howard is probably a better player than the 26 year old Juwan Howard. About equal scoring efficiency, even though he had less post up chances with Rockets and had to take the harder long Js. He was actually a much better rebounder last year than he was at age 26. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/howarju01.html It was a very bad year, when he was 26.
JH had $100MM shoved in his face by Pat Riley who tried to snag him from the Wizards to the Heat. It's not his fault for taking the money.
As we know when TMac and Yao were out last season, Howard posted above his career average. So to suggest Howard would be Chris Jent's backup is the worthless argument. Thanks for playing. I'll throw in a LOL for good measure too.
Really now? Chris Jent shot 50% from the field in 1994 and averaged 15.9/40 minutes (coudl also shoot the 3) Juwan shot 46% and averaged 14.8/40 minutes last year......for the last time, if a guy scores 12ppg and takes a lot of shots and minutes to do it that is not an indication that he is an effective scorer, rather he is an ineffective scorer. Less effective even, than Chris freaking Jent. if I'm the coach, I'm playing Jent. He's a more efficient player. Of course it doesn't really matter since there's no way in hell you'd ever play Howard over Thorpe or Herrera, that's for sure, so it's moot. LOL back at you trying to somehow tout his HORRIBLE season last year as something positive. Of course, a few posts later, you will be claiming that his horrible season is the result of injuries to other players, at which point somebody will remind you that he had an equally horrible season 2 years ago, at which point you will sit at your computer and exclaiml "but we gots to the playoffs yo!" We sure did, and we're lucky he wasn't there when we did or we might have been swept once he turned Dirk loose. Quite honestly, the fact that you've been reduced to claiming pyrhhic victories over arguing that Howard is better than NBA cup of coffee drinker Chris Jent (a close call I admit) should really clue you in that you're trying to polish a turd here Hell it bears repeating: YOU'RE ACTUALLY TRYING TO CLAIM A VICTORY BY ARGUING THAT HOWARD IS BETTER THAN CHRIS FREAKING JENT. I think my point has been made.
I counted, you listed 21 forwards, some of whom were clearly better than JHo, some of whom I would question. However, that still leaves 8 teams out there with PFs that are not clearly better than Howard, which qualifies as "many" teams in my book. And that makes my statement true even if I never argue about guys who were not clearly better than JHo (Gooden @ 10.7 PPG and 8.4 RPG), guys who were injured for more than half the year (Boozer) or guys who played center, not PF (Okur). Who was the starting PF for the Lakers 3-peat? Was Udonis Haslem an "above average to star level player" this year? I would certainly prefer a better PF over Howard. What fan would not want to see their lineup improve? However, this thread is about "giv[ing] Juwan away" which is absolutely the WRONG thing to do, given what he puts on the floor for us night in and night out. I keep coming back to the same question. What trade would you make that would improve the PF spot without severely downgrading our depth at other positions? In addition, how many of those moves would actually fly with the GM of the team in question? Until we have a realistic scenario for trading Howard, everything else is just b!tching about him. Unfortunately, you are b!tching about a guy who is very good in the role we put him in, just as Haslem was good in his role in Miami this year, just like Horace Grant was during the Lakers recent run. We can win with JHo as our starting PF just like those teams could win without an "above average to star" level PF. You are absolutely right that it takes a TEAM to win, and JHo is and will continue to be a part of our team.
You are missing my point. #1: We CAN win with Juwan Howard on this team. #2: I would NOT trade Juwan Howard for a bag of chips simply to unload him and get nothing in return. #3: Given #2, I realize there is no way we'll get decent value in return for Juwan Howard so I direct you to point #1. #4: I'd trade Howard in a heart beat if we got an obvious upgrade. Anything short of an obvious upgrade, I direct you back to point #1.
I wonder what Juwan Howard would think if he read this post. He has tried his @$$ off and gets no respect. I give him his credit, he has always brought 100% to every game. Maybe he might demand a trade since he can't please the fans. Now....to my serious side. Get this dude the hell outta here if you can pick up another PF, please!!! But....I'd rather start him at PF than Shane "The Dribbling Machine" Battier. Shane was brought in to guard the best wing. Being a PF defeats that purpose.
No, he doesn't. He hits the 18' jumper all night long, taking pressure off of Yao when he does. Even you admit that he has a good jumper rating and that is all he has to do on offense to keep defenses honest. No, we are not stacked. We are not in contention for the title this year. However, I see us making strides and making the playoffs and, depending on the matchup, perhaps going to the second round. Progress is all we can hope for at this point. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Keep telling yourself that.
Agreed. That wasnt my point though. I simply said that in comparisons terms. With that, Juwan has been overpaid and underperformed for his salary his entire career.
Dude, in Jent's BEST year, he averaged just over 10 points and 5 rebounds a game. FOR A TOTAL OF THREE GAMES!!! JHo just finished a season of 80 games in which he scored 11.7 points and 6.7 rebounds for the season. In '94, he would have been Thorpe's backup, and Jent never would have sniffed the floor. Oh, that's right, Jent never really sniffed the floor anyway.
