Why will Dwight have a place in the great Houston legacy of centers

You're so cool.

 

its harder to dominate as a center in today's NBA after they changed the rule in 2001 when previously the old illegal defense rule was used. In today's game the double team comes in much quicker making post plays more difficult to execute. they used to do it a lot with Yao where they had one defender front him and the other defender cover his back. that's why its so important to surround the center with good 3pt shooters so that it makes the opponent work harder on defense

 

This.

 

Yao will always stand out as the first Chinese star so his legacy is always going to be greater than the actual impact he had on the court.

 

Related: where does Hakeem Olajuwon place in the great Toronto legacy of centers?

Really though, if this is a serious prediction thread:
-You first have to predict how long Howard is a Rocket. Assuming Dwight's had enough of the media calling him wishy-washy, I'll go ahead and predict/pray that he will remain a Rocket for the duration of his current three-year guaranteed contract without requesting a trade to Hawaii or some s**t. He has a fourth year as a player option. I'll predict that he misses 8-10 games a season to aches and pains, but doesn't suffer a major season-breaking injury. Then, at age 30, he will be good enough and healthy enough that he chooses to opt out in order to secure one more big contract. From there, the question is, does he stay or are we in for Dwightmare part 3? This one is hard to speculate on but given that he will have a quality team around him, hopefully with good chemistry and a continued chance to win titles (as he is the oldest core piece), I'd say he signs a 4 year deal and stays here for the duration of it, after which he heads off to the new Charlotte Bobcats superteam to chase rings in his twilight years.

-Okay, so let's say we have Dwight Howard from age 27-34. How good is the team? Does Dwight bring a title to Houston? Again, we have to project: compared to the other teams in the league that will be set to contend over the next 5+ years, how is our outlook? I'll go ahead and guess we've got the chance to have a track record (not necessarily the same talent given the different league makeup, but the same results) rather like the first seven years of the Rudy Tomjanovich coached Rockets, ie, 50-55 wins per year and a solid chance to win titles. As a middle ground guess, say the Rockets win just a single title in Dwight's 7 years, failing to surpass Hakeem but still bringing great joy to our city.

-But alas, contending teams with two 'equal' superstars are hard to do from a legacy perspective. Wade has subsumed himself to James since Lebron arrived in South Beach. There was a clear hierarchy of "Shaq, then Kobe" and later "Kobe, then Pau" in LA. Westbrook is hitting a similar stretch in OKC where he's having to adjust to being necessary, yet clearly less trusted by fans and analysts than Durant. So who becomes 1 and who becomes 1a for Houston? I think it remains Harden's team, not Howard's team.

So my predictions are that Howard puts up 7 relatively healthy 18p-12r type seasons for a team that is consistently good, wins one title or so, and is generally pigeonholed as a Wade-level all-time great second banana. I think that lands him far, far behind Hakeem. Compare 7 years of Dwight to 7 years of young Yao or (4 young + 3 twilight) years of Elvin Hayes and I think he comes out ahead, given that those two guys never played for a realized contender. Dwight vs. Moses, I think is the real argument. We only got 6 years of Malone but they were in his absolute peak and he led the team to some real playoff success. I'll go with Dwight as 3rd behind Hakeem and Moses, but there's a lot of variables in my guess.

Don't think too hard about what I said, because it's blind guesswork, which is the only thing possible before he even puts on the uniform.