Rashard Lewis' stats on offense have declined worse than Howards and he's very upset about it. I think you can pin the blame on Vince Carter. The guy just isn't programmed to play on a championship level team. Put VC on a poor team and he'll make them better. Switch out a good player on a contender and put VC in his place and the team will get worse. The Magic's chemistry on offense is gone. I don't think Howard has regressed at all. If the Magic get their act together, share the ball and stop worrying about who's getting shots, they will win the East again. But with a sulking, moody softie like VC who will pout, get "injured", throw up bricks and wilt under the pressure of big-time expectations, that will be tough. VC is approaching AI-lite status in my book. His personality isn't as strong but his effect on teams is similar.
I've seen him get shut down 1 on 1 by a couple of defenders. I remember I posted in an article on here about Kendrick Perkins stating that Dwight Howard likes being physical but he hates it when players play physical back. That does seem to be the case. He seems to basically just tear up the power forwards that are playing center because there isn't any other center on the team. If you think this is just about the scoring, you might want to look at the stats again.
The next post move he gets other than gorilla dunk would be his first. It's just mind boggling that for as long as he has been in the NBA, he never developed anything close to a reliable post move.
Howard is a great defensive player and rebounder. He's just not that good on offense. I still can't figure out why he was able to go off vs. Cleveland last year.
Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter take too many shots for the Magic to be successful. I'm surprised Howard only has 1.5 apg. Those passes out of double teams need to be converted into 3's. That was what we did with Yao. Get the ball into him, and when he passes out of a double team, make the shot. One problem with Dwight is he's not a good perimeter shooter in terms of being a center. He's a lot like Shaq, so he needs to get deep post position in order to be successful. With the kind of defence teams play on him (fronting, sometimes sandwhiching), it makes it hard to get him the ball. If he catches the ball outside of his comfort zone, he's not going to be effective, even though I've seen him improve his post game quite a bit this year.
Single-covering wasn't the dumb part, putting Z on him was. Though I was somewhat confident Z would be able to stop him. I realized how soft and how low of an IQ Z really has on the defensive end. He was basically a liability in the series since he couldn't make his jump shots either.
hoopsstats provides various types of player splits. Last year, Dwight averaged 19.3 ppg against playoff teams, and 21.9 against non-playoff teams. This year, averaging only 14.9 against the playoff teams, and 20 ppg against the non-playoff teams.
That's just the regular season for last season right? But Yes, I also noticed that he's less effective against the elite teams because most of them have a big man the same size as Howard which neutralizes him. There's only one guy I've seen Dwight having to look up against and owning the hell out of them and that's Big Z.
Even if Dwight has regressed, or hit a plateau this season, it proves nothing. Players do have down years sometimes before coming back strong. You'll have to wait until Dwight is clearly on the decline (maybe 6 or 7 years from now?) to properly gauge when he peaked.
True, but I have seen nothing to convince me that Dwight has became a better player this season, nothing at all. From the eyeball test, I notice that teams are just finding better game plans to defend him. Any great player will own a defense no matter what game plan they use on him. He's the most stoppable star in the league if you ask me. He's regressed this season, but I guess you could say it's premature to say he peaked last season.
This is year 6 for him in the league. If he hasn't learned post moves by now, he probably won't. I don't think age is the best determiner of how much potential a player has left to grow; the number of years he's been in the league and the amount by which his game is improving each year are better. For example Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry are older than Howard but have shown great development over the last year; Howard hasn't. I think given that Howard's been in the league for awhile and in the last 3 years, his game really hasn't gotten better (especially on offense, his defense has improved a bit but I don't think he's better defensively this year than last), that what we see from Howard now is what we're going to get.
I just don't think there's any reason to try and write a player's history before it happens. Sure, you may not have seen anything that indicates improvement in Dwight's areas of weakness, but that doesn't mean you won't eventually. Just give it time and if you're right, then good for you. But there's really no point to making this thread...yet.
The guy is the same age as Ariza. Both have something in common. They're still developing their games, and they've got plenty of years before they plateau.
What the hell? How could he have reached his peak when he's only 24 years old? Guys like Tim Duncan, Hakeem and our very own Dorsey entered the league at around that age! Most NBA players peak at around 28 years old, I don't how you could say he peaked already when he still has 5 years to fully reach his prime
Howard in a sense is like that kid who was so smart he skipped so many grades and entered college 4 years earlier than normal. Sure he's been in the league for 6 years, but people his age should only be entering the league right now. Being in the NBA earlier just gave him a leg up, you honestly expect him to be polished when he was just a teenager before banging against the best basketball players in the world? He has plenty of years to grow his game. I refuse to believe that he won't improve even marginally in the next few years
While I agree that years in the league is more significant than age when it comes to player development, many players who have been in the league a long time still find ways to improve their game. I don't know if Dwight is one of them, but I'm dubious he has already peaked. You can, however, make a case that he's starting to peak.
