Sources: Dwight doesn't see himself as a Rocket next year

Right?

And that first season he came here, the post position looked nice again. When Dwight battled the Mavs (Chandler) and then the Clips ( with BG and DJ), I know I appreciated seeing a physical post presence in a Rockets uniform. Even against Golden State, with a painful, torn MCL, Dwight still gave it his all.

But now, during this season, where we started off with the same "whimper" of an identity, a strategically-deficient coach/playbook, role players that couldn't hit layups, a heavier,distracted James Harden, a selection of underperforming, injured and overhyped (on the level of VSpan/Bud/JHill/DavidAndersen) power forward(s) and an assistant coach thrown into the fire to fix the ills of his former boss (who thought clapping motivated his players ), Dwight has become a pile of feces responsible for our 6th-8th seed bedlam.

That fair-weather loyalty must be what the cool people represent now.

 

showcased? valued?
is this coming outta your mouth or a reliable source?

 

heard he just had another season ending injury

 

I think what you've written is reasonable and fair. I have also agreed that Dwight's fixation on money is a bit unwarranted with his noticeable decline over the last year. The money thing is a non-issue for me, but I think it's a fair criticism of Dwight. I have never proposed or supported a raise for Dwight, either. I don't know anyone on this board who has believed his output is worth the max at this point. Again, I'm in the minority of fans/coaches/people that see value in Dwight, and with specificity to this offense, his value isn't always obvious because of our style of play. Some fans will be relentlessly harsh on Dwight for his offense, but forget how he changes the ENTIRE game with his rim protection. Has he had games where the defense was weak? For sure, but for the games that he does "Dwight", we are a better team. Some posters argue that we're better off with Clint taking Dwight's minutes. I find that to be ridiculous on infinite levels. It just goes back to what we as Rockets fans believe Dwight's value is to the team. I believe he's undervalued as a result of a poor TEAM season and, on this board, because of player-fandom in the manner of player x vs. player y.

I do acknowledge that Dwight has been better during his career when his touches were consistent. This year, for many reasons, he hasn't had the same touches. Or, when he's gotten more shots off than usual, there have been games where he's been very inefficient. Still, any player is going to perform at a higher level when the shots come each game, regardless of the current situation. We've all seen that stronger step when Dwight gets a couple of dunks. It sparks his defense. For whatever reason, we have forgotten about Dwight in many games this year. Just my opinion.

My issue is simple. I agree that Dwight is not the same player he once was, but I think the accusations made about him, in terms of his skill set, character and potential are more personal and irrational than objective. The frustration from this season has caused many to examine Dwight with some sort of tunnel-vision that wouldn't necessarily happen if we had OKC's record.

I'm all for players being critiqued, but I'd prefer the criticism come from a place of logic, statistics, etc...instead of these odd, personal vendettas that stem from a preference of one player over another.

So again, your commentary is fair and I enjoy reading it because it comes from a place of thoughtfulness. I love intelligent, basketball debate.

I wish Dwight were Orlando Dwight, but he's not. I agree. I just won't agree that he's this trash we're hanging on to until the end of the season. Dwight was signed for a reason, and he still makes a difference for us on the court, even if it's more on the defensive end now.

 

LOL Nope. Rockets don't have the assets for Cousins, unless you throw in James Harden.

Spoiler

I don't know who among these teams would/wouldn't want him or what they'd be willing to trade but...

Milwaukee(Antetokounmpo, Middleton, Monroe, Parker)
Cleveland(Irving, Love, Thompson)
Boston(Bradley, Crowder, Olynyk, Smart, Sullinger, Thomas)
LA Clippers(Griffin)
Charlotte(Kaminsky, Kidd-Gilchrist, Walker)
Utah(Burks, Exum, Favors, Gobert, Hayward, Hood, Lyles)
LA Lakers(Clarkson, Randle, Russell)
Orlando(Fournier, Gordon, Hezonja, Oladipo, Payton, Vucevic)
Denver(Barton, Chandler, Faried, Gallinari, Jokic, Lauvergne, Mudiay, Nurkic)
Detroit(Caldwell-Pope, Drummond, Harris, Jackson, Johnson, Morris)
Phoenix(Bledsoe, Booker, Goodwin, Knight, Len, Warren)
Oklahoma City(Adams, Ibaka, Kanter, McGary, Payne)
Timberwolves(Dieng, Jones, LaVine, Muhammad, Pekovic, Rubio, Towns, Wiggins)

A 2nd round pick who can't get off the bench(except in Philly), a 1st round pick with back problems and has barely played, a regressing? 2nd year big man who makes Omer Asik look good around the basket, and a 2nd round pick PF.

It's coming from Dwight himself.

 

The dwight signing was the right Move to make at the time no doubt about it, Any team would have done. Even the Warriors wanted him and cleared space to try and aquire him.

But he's not the same player he was his first year here he's just not. The facts are the rockets have performed better with him off the court for the past 2 seasons and the sample size is large enough (48 games) to see that dwight just doesn't fit with this team or more importantly our 26 year old star.

Look at how much better the pick and roll has looked with harden and beasley? It works to perfection. There's a big reason why morey wanted a stretch PF who could shoot and went so hard at bosh/Aldridge/melo. In the game today you need guys with multiple skill sets not just a guy who's dominant from 3ft in.

I like dwight he was once a star top 3 player but he hasn't been that guy for us. We have him 22 mil a year to be atleast an Allstar level player and the past 2 years he hasn't been and that's not factoring in his injuries.

Dwight is also not a great defender anymore. He's still good but he hasn't adapted to the new game he won't run out at stretch bigs and it's killed us a lot this year, and I don't even need to get started on all head to head match ups against bigs he should be better than get the better of him.

Dwight is just not the guy for us and that's fine we tried but we have a star player we need to capitalize on the 2 years we no we have him for and signing dwight to 30 mil is not showing harden you are about winning.

 

We definitely play better with him on the court come playoff time. Playoff Dwight ain't no joke. It's just getting there healthy that's the tough part.

 

Alright, Alright.

So where do we disagree? Dwight has declined. He isn't the stretch 4 we need in this type of offense.

I guess we have a minor disagreement about his defense. I think you're looking at what Dwight does on the defensive end fairly limitedly. It's not just blocking shots....This would be a whole different discussion, but Dwight's defensive IQ is altogether pretty high. When you watch him communicate with the guards about what the opposition is doing with picks, or when you see Dwight pay close detail to protecting the weak side, while avoiding a def.3 second penalty...he does a lot on the defensive side of things that just go, well, unnoticed.

Generally speaking, I think fans will really miss his defense next year, if Morey is unable to gather some pieces with above-average defense. You can't just sign a huge center....you need a guy with the intelligence to defend his man and use his body to create an intimidating presence. There are not many of those men around anymore.

 

sometimes it seems like Dwight is the ONLY one communicating on defense.

 

Wow, Codman you nailed it.

 

I see value in Dwight. But also recognize when some of that value has deteriorated. Dwight is nowhere close to the defense force he once was. Defensive stats support this. Analytics supports this. And the eye test, more than anything, supports this. Just watch him when he's switched on PnRs. Watch him on the inside when he has to make a quick double jump. And this isn't on Dwight's head/mental game. It's on his back and age. This is a league today where the best defenses are constantly and almost universally switching. The changes offensively have forced that. And Dwight is a guy that just doesn't have great lateral quickness anymore.

Now, absolutely, get a MUCH BETTER coaching/defensive system in place, have everyone at least be rotating properly, hustling properly, not gambling for steals so much, etc. then Dwight's newer age/health based shortcomings can be masked and he can still be a decent interior defender... but he isn't great anymore and never will be again, and there are various other options out there that might be as good. Whether those options are obtainable or not.. who knows.

Look, there's always random crazy fandom. Forget that noise. The logical posters on the board view the situation logically.. .which is:

1. The Rockets aren't making it past the 2nd round this year and would be INCREDIBLY INCREDIBLY lucky to get that far.
2. Dwight is 95% gone. The only way he stays is if he is okay with much less money then he currently seems to want and a role that is different than he currently seems to rather have.
3. Notwithstanding the fact that analytics and stats don't tell you everything, Dwight doesn't seem to move the needle one way or the other on this team. He has great games they lose. He has poor games they win. And vice versa. His +/- this year is negative. For the regular season at least, it's hard to find any impact from him.
4. Dwight is constantly doing foolish things on the court. I'm not talking about a bad pass. I'm talking about the offensive fouls, the retaliations, the stickumgate crap. None of this is helpful.

When you factor all of that together, is it such a terrible idea to just not play Dwight? Well, yeah, still it is. But it's certainly reasonable to cut back on his minutes and give Clint more. A lot more. I would not shed a tear in any way, or think it illogical in any way, to see Clint starting and Dwight off the bench and them splitting 48 minutes at center. Frankly, I can see that helping the team from a balance perspective.

I think that reason is because the game has changed, because he just isn't a good one-on-one post player, because he doesn't have the same athleticism in his game he had even last year, not quite. He's generally been a good solider about it all... but there's also lots of obvious times where he seems to not be giving anywhere close to 100%. Getting touches, not getting touches... give 100%.

Likely if we had OKCs record Dwight would be playing much better. Or there's the observation that we did have near OKCs record last year, and that was without Dwight really playing int he regular season. Whatever. Random character attacks certainly are uncalled for. But its certainly personally reasonable to note:

- Skill-set: Not what it once was. Never what he thought it was.
- Character: Passive aggressive in a seemingly petulant way. Just speaking about on the court here - he seems like a nice guy off the court, kid issues aside. I've already noted Kobe's everyone has to beef attitude is equally ridiculous. But that doesn't excuse Dwight's character either. Passive aggressive petulance can't possibly be helping this team.
- Potential: Has to be maximized in the right system. Even in that system, even when maximized, again nowhere close to what it once was.

Again, "trash" is an uncalled for word. But, AGAIN, this season will be over soon. AGAIN, Dwight is likely gone... as much because he wants to as the Rockets don't want him back, but whatever - he is being hung onto until the end of this season, which will be over soon. AGAIN, Dwight isn't really making the difference on the court you imply he is. AGAIN, his defense skills have greatly diminished.

This is reasoned, logical commentary. I'm a ROCKETS fan. How do they win another championship? Multiple championships? That's what I care about.

 

Bad example because when Arian Foster played he went all out on a suck azz offense of the Texans. They released him and in turn, the Texans were able to turn around and make waves acquiring new assets in Free Agency. Remains to be seen what happens this coming year with the Texans but they've at least thrown their hat in the ring in the AFC on paper pending the draft. They're in the "conversation" in the NFL now at least now.

Now we got Dwight with his massive contract. In my opinion when/if they release Dwight the Rockets will be in a similar situation...the ability to upgrade. I'm a Foster fan big time. I personally feel his "off the field' persona went against him in the end with the Texans or amplified it. Dwight has similar personality stuff going on with him and it gets amplified when he's not performing on the court. Even with Foster he'd tick me off when he'd do something stupid on the field like try to catch the ball with one hand turning the ball over via an interception. Again, I'm comaparing apples and oranges with Foster/Dwight here because Dwight isn't officially injured, but I think there are some similarities between both players and both Houston teams. Especially as it relates to both players on the decline. Obviously, they have a chance to prove different and rightfully so. However, with Howard we've seen his upside already. Playoffs Dwight..if we got that every night or on most nights is a different story. The Dwight we've seen all year has been half of that and that's being kind at this stage in my opinion. For the money is it worth it. In my opinion, NO..especially with a big NBA Free Agency looming. We shall see.

 

Thanks Codman, I agree completely.

Dwight Howand deserves more respect from the GARM.

Appreciation threads for him and acknowledgement instead of hate when he is gone.

 

Great, great post. Thank you for the read.

 

I'm totally aligned with everything codman has said here regarding Dwight.

 

I agree that this was a thoughtful, well-reasoned post. I only had a problem with one statement, bolded above. How do you figure Dwight is "95% gone"? I don't get that. I get that he's aged, has limited mobility, perhaps cannot adapt to the modern game, does dumb things, but 95% gone? He can still turn it on; he was a beast in the playoffs last year, and if there was anything worth playing for this year at this point, I'm sure he could turn "Playoffs Dwight" back on. So I don't know about your 95% assessment. Dwight is still a force to be reckoned with.

 

Call me crazy but i think warriors wait out on durant and lose harrison barnes bc of it. Celtics throw a great offer to sacremento for cousins but keep their lotto pick. So they have the tandem of Thomas, simmons, boggie and wait for it... KD. Because KD Signs in Boston and warriors wait it out on Barnes Warriors get screwed and Barnes comes to Houston. Warriors or spurs miht throw money and dwight. But i think dwight goes to spurs. Along side lamarcus he will put 15/10 and play till he is 40.
Rockets some how end up with
Capela
Barnes
Parsons
Harden
Beverley

 

I can agree with this, lol.

 

I think for the most part, the Rockets' fanbase will not display any hard feelings towards Howard if he departs. Those who do will only do so out of saltiness or some other weird reason. Let's not forget that he chose to come here, and we were pressing that F5 button so many times anticipating his decision. Did it work out? Not for the time being, but I'll always appreciate the good times he gave to this city.

 

Gone as in won't be on this team next year. Not gone as a player.

He CLEARLY still has value in this league. So I wasn't saying he shouldn't be valued.

Just that it is hard, almost impossible, to see him on the Rockets next year. As such, it isn't ludicrous to be in favor of meaningfully reducing his playing time and increasing Clint Capela's.

I am currently, RIGHT NOW, in favor of benching Dwight to start Clint. Not, not playing Dwight. Just changing the lineups and rotations, and taking Dwight's 32 minutes per game down (say to 26/27) and taking Clint's up from 19.5 to 25/26.

I get that the change to starting rotation won't happen. Hopefully they can try and get the minutes change to happen, but I doubt it. The team still seems to have some hope of making a playoff run, which is patently ludicrous. There is no chance in HELL of this team beating two GS/SA/OKC/LAC... much less one.

Related... I want to see Clint at the C. Not as a PF. While admittedly that Dwight/Clint lineup had some success, Clint is a C, and that lineup wouldn't work for large minutes, long-term.

Not that I blame the Rockets organizationally for how they got here, given the Dwight situation, but I think part of the Clint sophomore slump has been due to his role. Bench, starter, C, PF, lots of time, no time.