Tag: Dwight Howard (Page 5 of 11)

Pippen says that Dwight Howard can’t carry a championship team

March 10, 2010 / John Paulsen

He should know — ba dum bump!

But let’s get serious: Scottie Pippen took a break from hosting cheerleading contests in China to tell the Orlando Sentinel the following…

“He’s a very special player but I don’t think he’s going to win a championship until he gets another superstar to play alongside of him,” Pippen said recently while visiting Orlando. “A guy that’s very consistent and has that drive, that’s what it’s going to take. I don’t think that he can carry a team to a championship.”
“He’s not that great of a scorer, he’s not a good shooter and he’s not a good foul shooter. So in the latter parts of the game, as big as he is and as much athleticism as he has, that becomes very small when the game gets into crunch time. He’s not the type of player that can dominate a game in the fourth quarter.”

Pippen is entitled to his opinion, but let’s not forget that Dwight Howard led the Magic to a Finals appearance (beating a very good Cavs team along the way) at the age of 23. Orlando lost 4-1, but Game 2 went into overtime (after Courtney Lee just missed a layup that would have won the game), so with a little luck, the Magic would have headed home with the series tied, 1-1.

Howard is just 24 now, and while his post game is certainly not polished, it is improving. He has developed a baby hook with both hands to go along with his signature power game. And let’s not forget that both Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal didn’t win an NBA title until the age of 27, so it took both players a few years to figure things out.

Howard should be able to develop a lot in three years, regardless of Pippen’s opinion on the current state of his game. These days, it takes two superstars (or one superstar and two stars) to win a title: Kobe/Gasol, Boston’s Big Three, Duncan/Parker/Ginobili, Wade/Shaq, Shaq/Kobe, Jordan/Pippen, Olajuwon/Drexler. The only recent champions not listed there are the ’04 Pistons (superior chemistry and balance) and the ’94 Rockets (dominant big man surrounded by shooters).

Would another superstar help? Sure. Is it an absolute necessity? History has proven that it isn’t, assuming Howard continues to develop.

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Fantasy Basketball, NBA, NBA Finals

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Dwight Howard’s defense is overrated?

March 9, 2010 / John Paulsen

Yes, at least according to Peter Keating, who wrote a piece entitled “Why Dwight Howard is overrated,” which outlines the recent research presented by John Huizinga and Charles “Sandy” Weil at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

Insider subscription required, so I’ll be brief in my excerpt…

Over the entire stretch of data that Huizinga and Weil examined, Tim Duncan didn’t goaltend once, while 24 percent of Dwight Howard’s blocks resulted in free points for the other team.
The data yields all kinds of instructive contrasts, most clearly between Duncan and Howard (hence the name of Huizinga and Weil’s paper). In 2008, Howard had 232 blocked shots, but he either saved or created just 124 points; Duncan had 149 blocks, but generated 167 points. On a points-per-block basis, Duncan has four of the top 10 seasons, according to Huizinga and Weil. Howard has three of the bottom 10.

If anything, Howard should look at this report and draw two conclusions: 1) he needs to stop goaltending, and 2) he needs to try to direct his blocks better. Either block it to himself or to a teammate to start a fast break opportunity. He often tosses the ball out of bounds, which only serves to give possession back to the other team.

On the final Laker possession in Sunday’s tilt in Orlando, Howard picked up Kobe off of a screen and roll and forced him into a very tough fadeaway jumper. His defense on that play was excellent and I think he is a very good defender. Could he be better? This research says he can.

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Fantasy Basketball, NBA

2009-10 NBA season Dwight Howard Dwight Howard defense Orlando Magic

Magic give Cavs third straight loss

February 21, 2010 / John Paulsen

LeBron James posted 33 points, nine rebounds and six assists, and Antawn Jamison bounced back from a dreadful Cav debut with a nice 19-point, eight-rebound effort, but the Magic supporting cast came up big in the fourth quarter to give Orlando a 101-95 win.

Jameer Nelson (18-4-5) and Vince Carter (11-1-3) hit several big shots in the final period, and Rashard Lewis (15-4-2) hit a corner three that sealed the win for the Magic. Dwight Howard (22-16, 4 blks) did his usual damage early on, but Orlando went away from him in the fourth quarter, using a series of Nelson-Carter pick-and-rolls to free Carter up on the block.

Shaq (20-5, 2 blks) had a nice game and was seemingly energized by his feud with Howard about who deserves to have the nickname “Superman.” But with both big men such poor foul shooters, neither team threw the ball inside much in the fourth quarter.

Jamison proved his worth with a nine-point spurt to start the third quarter that gave the Cavs the lead. He’s going to be fine in Cleveland’s offense once he gets comfortable. He’s a tough cover for most power forwards, but as Jeff Van Gundy noted, he’s not nearly as tough to defend when he’s playing small forward. (The same goes for Rashard Lewis, who is far more productive at PF.)

LeBron, coming off of back-to-back losses, seemed especially grumpy today, and was complaining just about every time he took the ball to the hoop and didn’t get the call. I think he has entered what I call the “Kobe Zone,” the convergence of talent and ego where a player thinks he can’t be stopped without a foul, so every failed drive to the basket finishes with some signal to the officials that they missed the call. LeBron took the ball into Dwight Howard twice — once in the first half and once in the fourth quarter — and both times he lit into the refs. On the first play, Howard was planted in the middle of the lane and LeBron clipped him as he went by, and it was a good no-call. The fourth quarter no-call consisted of LeBron taking it directly into Howard’s body and raised arms as Howard retreated towards the basket. The ball got knocked out of bounds and LeBron made his sour pickle face and screamed at the refs.

But if the Cavs want an answer for what went wrong today, they need to look at their backcourt. Mo Williams (1-9), Anthony Parker (1-4) and Delonte West (2-9) combined to go 4-22 (18%) from the field, and that’s not going to get it done.

Fantasy Basketball, NBA

2009-10 NBA season Antawn Jamison Cleveland Cavaliers Dwight Howard LeBron James Orlando Magic Shaquille O'Neal

Why doesn’t Dwight Howard get more touches?

February 16, 2010 / John Paulsen

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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Fantasy Basketball, NBA

2009-10 NBA season Dwight Howard Orlando Magic