I've been on this for a while now...I've made several posts about his posture, lack of mobility, etc. He needs aggressive treatment, but Dwight isn't the kind of guy who's going to commit to that for a whole summer. He's got to go out and have fun.
He hit the nail on the head. Look how low Hakeem would get when he caught the ball in the post. It gave him so much leverage to make a move to the bucket or catch the defender off guard for a Dreamshake. Howard basically catches the ball standing up. The defender doesn't have to work to get into position. From that position it's harder to use your core to get a controlled move in (e.g. a hookshot), and that's partly while Dwight's hooks always clank off the backboard.
Hes kinda right.. honestly the only time I remember Howard looking like he cared was when he was crying on the bench after the 2009 finals..
Muscles need to stretch first to contract to move...getting low stretches muscles like the glutes and prepares them to fire, thus moving you. That stretch also allows you to line up joints at different angles, which allows you to control the direction you move in. For example, shifting your leg more horizontally than staying vertical allows you to push off at an angle that propels you forward. Stay vertical, and you can only push up, but if you're trying to get past your opponent, how does pushing up help? It doesn't. It's an inefficient motion and waste of energy. You're left trying to contort the body in a way that forces forward movement, which is like driving with your parking break on.
Don't dwell on losses which you can't go back and change. That's part of Spurs philosophy IIRC, but we have to be a-holes about Dwight doing it. It's a good thing if Dwight is able to take a loss, pick out the lessons, and discard the negative feelings towards it, and start getting positive for the next game. That's a good thing, and from what I've seen that's what he does. It's one style. It's not always the best style for every situation. But it's fine. People used to say Duncan didn't have the demeanour to be a leader. Dwight's job isn't to motivate the other guys any more than putting them in a positive mood for what's coming and putting in maximum effort in a game. Blame the coach or the actual superstar of the team if anyone.
Dwelling on a loss and feeling a loss are two different things...i take it as, he just forgets about them, as if it never happened, which isn't good because in the end, you're not going to feel very different if you lost 20 games versus 40. The spurs have a sense of urgency, when they see it's necessary, so they move on from losses, but still feel the weight of them piling up.
You can take it that way, but seems highly unlikely for a guy who left Los Angeles to come to Houston, who left Orlando to go to Los Angeles. A guy who carried a team to the finals. Again, maybe it is that way, but it's 100% speculation. I take it the exact other way. I think he's learned that feeling ****ty about the past is absolutely worthless if you are able to learn the lessons from it and take a positive attitude into tackling the obstacle again.
did milkhair have a timestop watch timing the intervals of smiles between the game ending and five minutes later? or did he just eye test it? that's my center, man. don't talk about my center! (tears coming down)
Sure, he went to the finals and lost. Changes a lot of people. For example, you might learn that it's better to learn lessons and move forward than to stew in negativity for motivation. The point is, there is no argument you or I can make to say which approach works better. It's irrelevant. Both mental approaches have worked for people. We are always going to think that the way we personally do it is the better way. Same goes for McHale. And we might change in the future. And we might have already changed in the past. But it makes no sense to hold this up as a criticism of Dwight Howard. If anything, I'd argue that he doesn't get over things fast enough during games and when he lets it fester it ends up in misguided aggression which leads to fouls and technicals. Dwight, I would speculate, performs radically better when he's smiling. Makes his moves quicker, sees his teammates open, gets more engaged in team defense and offense (pure speculation on my part). But again, 100% subjective, the whole idea of HOW a players should think has no real pattern we can attach ourselves to. We're talking about inconsequential opinions. The only thing we can definitely say is he should choose an approach and master it, whatever it is - and also that the coach and leaders of a team should understand that there are different types of people. That goes for Harden, JB and obviously for Howard as well. Harden doesn't think like Howard does, but Howard can't force him to change that. They have to learn how to motivate each other just like teachers have to learn how to teach each student in the way they are best motivated. Co-exist. Howard has never been the problem on this team, except that maybe he hasn't reached some of our inflated aspirations for him. Top rebounder, efficient scorer, very good defender, poor FT shooter, below average post player, turns it up in the playoffs, wins his matchup 8 out of 10 games. I'll take it. That's a ROCK solid starter even if not star material.
Right, a low position gives you leverage and control. It explains a lot, actually, I never picked up on that with Dwight
All you have to do is look at the players who won championships for the last 20-30 years. They all have the same drive to win. It's the Draymond Green drive and heart. Dwight Howard does not have it.
Its great that a player gives 100% effort during games and is emotionally engaged while on the court. But of course it matters that he doesn't care when the team looses (or shows it in some way at least). Do you think its normal that after a big loss your 30 year old superstar is goofing around tower slapping a rookie while walking off the court or some BS like that? How do you think that attitude affects his more serious teammates? I mean, Kobe seems to be a Psycho and a control freak, but this might explain a bit of why Kobe ended up disliking Howard so much. With this information, one could assume that every time the Lakers lost Howard probably showed a careless attitude in the locker room and Kobe being the nut case that he is, but a nut case that likes to win and has rings to prove it, ended up being extremely annoyed by that nonchalant goofy off court attitude. Dont you think younger players with less time on the league might get confused by such an attitude? That a rookie might think "if the 30 year old ringless superstar doesn't care too much why should i go nuts about a loss? its one loss who cares we will win the next one"? Especially if say superstar is jokingly punching you in the balls or giving you a wet willy in the locker room after a blowout loss? We see this all the time when his on the bench where he is commonly seen joking around with the 21 year old rookies. Its not that he has to want to commit suicide every time the team loses and go jump off a bridge, but show that you care, at least for a couple of hours, that winning is important to you, that all the sacrifice that you and your teammates do, the sweat, the blood, the injuries, the long trips, the time apart from your families mean something and that the game is NOT just a game, at least pretend a bit for the sake of the team specially if you are one of the guys the team looks up to for leadership. Not caring is definitely not a good sign. I honestly dont remember of any leader/champion who didn't give a **** and still was successful. Please feel free to remind me if i am forgetting about someone
If I was a role player on the Rockets, Dwight always screwing around shooting threes during pre-game would not send me a message. Also, Dwight would have won a championship by now if he committed to free throws like Webber did.
ESPN just did the all-time player rankings. I looked at it today and asked myself how many of the dudes on that list "get over losses easily," and the only ones I have questions about are the new age ball players like Harden. The all-time greats never shrug this **** off without some level of give-a-damn, and Dwight has more physical gifts than most of the dudes on that list - what separates the others from him if not attitude?
I was listening to this. My big issue with McHale is he never held himself accountable. He literally had no defensive gameplan, no offensive plays, zero creativity, and never cared to discipline his players. He created the monster himself in Harden. He was clearly trying to avoid talking about James, but I hate how he has thoughts about everybody but himself. The WCF appearance made him immune to any criticism, he was an absolutely miserable coach. I was appalled we lost to the Blazers in the playoffs. His only mechanism to change the game was to "go smaller". Every time we struggled, we went smaller. It was extremely annoying.
The understanding is that he is only allowed to coach within the parameters of Morey Ball as Adelman's replacement. So maybe that has something to do with it.
