Was last night a season low for Dwight in rebounding? I imagine it was. Funny, how Yao often gets out-rebounded by opposing Centers and PFs but he held Howard to nearly half of his season average.
I think Howard's rebounding statistics are a bit inflated. He's a terrific rebounder, don't get me wrong, but his offensive rebounding isn't much better than Yao's. He just grabs a ton of defensive boards. And the reason is because the Magic don't put another strong rebounder next to him, and he typically doesn't have to guard strong offensive players (not too many of that at the center position nowadays). The Rockets are a pretty good offensive rebounding team, in general, and Howard has to pay extra attention to Yao. So his defensive rebounding will naturally be hindered there. I think that explains it.
Since always. Watch him guard traditional bigs, and not when he is isolated on the perimiter...something that should never happen to centers.
Who did the photoshopping on this pic? there's no way Yao Ming and Dwight Howard have equal elevation off the ground
Since never. I watch both guys a lot. Against "traditional bigs" they are about even while the centers that have mobility give Yao a lot more trouble than Howard. Look, I'm not saying Howard is light years better than Yao on defense. It's very close. But he might be a little better than you give him credit for, including on-ball defense.
I like Dwight Howard, though - I remember when everybody was hyping Amare up like crazy, it's a bit similar with Dwight now, but Dwight is a much better player, I think, and also a much nicer guy.
I never bought into the Amare hype. It was like he achieved so much so fast yet still appeared to me as a very flawed player. I think Amare is close to a 20/10 (career) guy on the right team but when he got Nash next to him in that run and gun system it was like the perfect storm for him statistically. Even when he was regularly have huge offensive nights I just got the feeling he was more of a gimmick and that the league (or injury) would catch up him. Again, good player but the talk of him being an all time great was obviously premature. Howard, on the other hand, seems legit to me. Other than not having a perimeter game he seems solid to me. He, like Amare, relies on a lot of athleticism but Dwight is also very powerful and that is not something he will lose at the end of his career. Dwight Howard, at age 32 will not be nearly as explosive but if he takes care of himself and has some good luck he will still be a load down low for anyone due his size and strength (the guy could easily weigh a chiseled 285lb by then). The more I watch Dwight the more I think he will never develop a great outside game due to how "robotic" his movement is but I do think he will become good enough where he can be very efficient within 10 ft from the basket. That should be enough for him to remain one of the elite big men in the league for another decade.
A lot of people say that Amare has declined ... but he looks as good now as he's ever been. He's shooting 58% from the field. He's got the third best PER in the league, and it's been steadily climbing since the beginning of the year. The stats don't jump out because he's only playing 31 minutes a game. But he's averaged close to 25/10 on 62% shooting since the first month of the season, in just under 35 minutes a game. That's strong. I would say he deserves the starting center spot in the West right now, considering how well he and his team has played.
From the stats on 82games.com (updated on 1/3/08), it seems to me Stoudemire is not playing a lick of defense. While he himself posted a 28.8 PER, he allowed a jaw dropping 24.3 PER -- a difference of +4.5 net PER -- from his opponents at the center position. In contrast, Yao had +9.6 (23.9 - 14.2) net PER (that's not even counting the last two Rockets victories in which he upped his stats big time). Did I just expose you?
This is a response to me saying that I think Amare deserves to start in the All-Star game, right? I agree that Amare is a poor individual defender at the center position. But I don't think it's important enough to treat net PER as true measure of a player's performance. For a center, I think team (help) defense is much more relevant, for instance. If you really want to base your comparison on 82games.com stats, their Roland rating is meant to be more complete. Amare has a +6.4 composite "Roland" rating, while Yao has a +5.2 rating. If you like. I think you take these comparisons too personally.
You cited individual PER as your criterion for selecting Stoudemire (3rd best in the league as of now) as the starting center for the WC. I pointed out how preposterous it is because it doesn't tell the whole story (I wouldn't say it's only half the story, but it is definitely not complete). If you don't spend that much effort at defensive end on your man, you naturally are more efficient and have more energy on padding your offensive stats. That's the fundamental difference between Yao and Stoudemire wrt their impact on their teams. After all, as long as everyone on your team can manage to have a positive net PER, albeit how small it is, you team is guaranteed unbeatable. Right now, it doesn't look very good for the Rockets if one looks at Rockets players' net PERs, and that reflects our overall record to this point. I used the stats from 82games.com because that's the site I visited regularly to see how some players of my interests are doing, by no means I'd shun any of your favorite sites that can provide comprehensive stats. Since you like to use PER, we talk about PER. Now you are running away from it? What gives? Roland rating? Yeah right, Kirk Snyder is the highest on the team.
For someone throwing around a lot of stats, you sure pick them quite selectively. I think wnes made a valid point in response to the stats you posted.
I never said that was my sole criteria. In fact, I said: "considering how well he and his team have played". You're right ... PER doesn't tell the whole story. But neither does the "Net PER" statistic you cite. And, in any case, I'm skeptical about how useful the concept of a "Net PER" is. I think counterpart PER is a flawed measure for individual defense. You're talking about counterpart PER. I've never felt counterpart PER was an particularly significant measure for centers. See this post, for instance, which I wrote over a year ago in defense of Yao. Digging a little further back, here's another post where I express skepticism about counterpart PER, in general. Actually, I really don't recall ever using counterpart PER in any way to support an argument, so I don't think I'm "running away" from anything. He's also third on the team in counterpart PER. So what? He hasn't played enough minutes for such statistics to be relevant for him.
I'm not really big on the net PER concept, which I've written in the past. Centers, in particular, have more of a team defensive responsibility than other positions, so I definitely don't think they should be held solely responsible for the statistical productivity of their counterparts.
I don't know, I see centers guarding each other and going at each other more than players in other positions - you can switch between SG and SF defending each other, and SF and PF, but many centers you can really only defend with a center.
OK, but you also have to consider the way in which centers accumulate their PER. Perimeter players are more offensively oriented -- they get a high PER by scoring for the most part. Centers, at least in today's league, aren't asked to score as much but rather rebound and block shots. So, if you like, their PER has less to do with their ability to score. In that respect, counterpart PER is an imperfect measure of individual defense. Also, while a player's offensive abilities are well described by stats like PER, defensive contribution is not properly measured by counterpart PER. Particularly for centers, there's much more to defense than simply stopping your guy from scoring.
Yao PWNED Dwight Howard even though Howard had the help of the racist corrupt referees. Yao >>>>> Dwight Howard + referees
Friend said the other while the Suns were on "Whats been up with Amare? been UNimpressive this year". Told him microfracture and then everyone was expecting him to blast off for 27 and 13 a game or something. But other than that same Amare. If I weren't a Rocket fan my vote would lean toward Amare cuz he's much more geared for All-Star game style and entertainment.
right now? it would have to be YAO, but 30 years from now...when we look back at their careers ...dwight howard would be better..DHow is still young but he shows great potential and plus he works hard to improve his game....he needs to work on his shots then he would be fine
