As part of his annual trade value column, Simmons ranks the top 40 players in terms of total value. Here’s his take on Dwight Howard:
2. Dwight Howard
Fact: Howard has played every game this season.
Fact: A whopping 75 players have attempted more field goals than he has, including Jason Thompson, John Salmons, Danilo Gallinari, Luis Scola, Carl Landry, Raymond Felton, Andrew Bynum, Jamal Crawford and Kenyon Martin.
Fact: He’s 109th in the league in field goal attempts per game, tied with Ryan Gomes at 9.6. Ryan Gomes!
Fact: Teammates Vince Carter (14.9), Rashard Lewis (11.9) and Jameer Nelson (10.3) all average more field goals attempts than he does.
Fact: He leads the league in free throw attempts (10.4 per game), so realistically, that means Howard is getting about 14-15 scoring touches per game. Not even four a quarter.
My take: He’s too nice of a guy. It’s both the best and worst thing about him. If you ever played basketball, you know there’s one rule with big guys: Make sure they touch the ball enough. If they don’t get enough touches, they get cranky. They stop running the floor. They stop setting good picks. They stop crashing the boards. Big guys are like women — they need affection, they need to be stroked every so often, and if you ignore them, they start to resent you.
In Howard’s case, nobody in Orlando has to worry about keeping him happy. He’s always happy! He’s a good soldier. In a roundabout way, he’s avoiding the responsibility of carrying an offense every night. This is easier. He gets to run around, jump over guys, ram some dunks home, block some shots, flex his muscles, smile to the crowd and concentrate on his strengths. Of course, he will never, ever, ever get better this way, and if you look closely at his stats these past three years, he is what he is: 18-19 points, 13-14 rebounds, 3 blocks, 60 percent shooting. Alpha dog pedigree, sidekick mindset. Too bad.
As a point of reference, let’s look at Shaquille O’Neal, who is/was similar in playing style (power post-up game) and handicap (FT shooting). In 10 consecutive seasons from 1993 to 2003, O’Neal never averaged fewer than 18.1 field goal attempts or 9.5 free throw attempts. Over that span, his usage percentage — the percentage of his team’s possessions that the player used while on the floor — vacillated between 31 and 32 percent.
Conversely, Howard has never attempted more than 12.4 shots in a season, and his usage percentage peaked at 26.1% last season. In short, Howard isn’t getting nearly enough touches, and Simmons’ theory about how his innate happiness is limiting his touches is completely valid.
It’s partly up to Stan Van Gundy to fix this. Howard has by far the highest effective FG% on the team (60.1%), so he should be the Magic’s #1 offensive option. Period. Van Gundy has some control over this.
When Howard was asked about his “feud” with Shaq over the “Superman” moniker, he said that he was just trying to get where Shaq is at in his career. If he truly wants to have a comparable career, he has to demand the ball. When Shaq wasn’t getting his touches, he let Kobe know. Howard has to do the same with Nelson, Carter and Lewis.
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