So whats the consensus on Dwight Howard?

[koogiking]

I'm a Knick fan and I haven't really followed the Rockets this season. I just wanted to know what Rockets fans feel about Dwight and his performance and if he's be performing well, or poorly. Up to expectations or below? Also how does he compare in your opinion to other Rockets centers like Yao Ming and Hakeem for example.

I did try reading some threads here but most posts here are about Jeremy Lin sooo.... yeah.

[BaYBaller]

He's about what I expected. Not as bad as last year when he was recovering from injury, and not quite as good as his prime years in ORL. He's far enough in his career that you kind of know what you are getting out of him. Only concern is that he holds up for the length of his contract.

[NamelessHero]

by far the best player of rockets...

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[rocketsballin]

WHAT? u guys expected dwight to play like this? hell no, i chose below expectations

he's been the best player on the rockets. but he should be doing a lot more. not all of it is his fault. part of it is the players and coaching. but something he needs to do, when contiually dont pass him the ball, he needs to be an ****. dont set picks for anyone. just wait for them tos hoot and get the rebound or go back on d.

even then he should DEMAND THE BALL! when they dont pass to him he doesnt do much about it. iriitating

thats basically what i dont like about him. he needs mo shats! halfway into the season team still stupid as hell

[Slava]

Living in Houston, I have watched almost 90% if the games and I think Dwight is exactly what he was last season. His second leap is just not there as it used to in Orlando and his best offensive game which is quick posts out of brush screens is still not being utilized.

He has a hard time playing back to basket with a set defense but the turnovers are much better than last season. It also doesn't help that harden and rest of Houston guards might be the worst bunch at throwing an entry pass into the post.

[Maudlin17]

There are a few problems with Howard in the post.


1. Harden doesn't like throwing entry passes
2. Beverley can't - his only job is to dribble the ball past half court and hand it off to Harden.
3. Lin doesn't play enough with Howard to throw him enough
4. Howard probably should learn how to get into position better.
5. Howard's post moves are painfully bad for a guy who's been in the league 10 years.

[jetlife_]

My disappointment with Dwight is that his free throws have gotten even worse as the season's progressed. At least give us 50 or 60%, this 33% stuff is just ridiculous. He went from really bad to historically bad. There's no way he's putting effort into improving his free throws and they've regressed like that.

His play outside of that has been right about where I expected.

[tonman]

The problem with Howard is he hasn't made the team any noticeably better. Superstars make others better and neither harden nor Howard does that. If you are saying the other players are there to make Dwight better you've lost the reasonDwight is here. Sure you have to feed Dwight the ball but there isn't this mad rush by the opponents to surround him. I've seen more one on one defense when teams guard Dwight which means teams are saying they would rather Dwight be the offense for the rockets then letting the rockets run.

[tedb]

the reason why this team is not much better with howard is because last year they were pushing the ball a ton. It doesnt seem thats happening now. The effectiveness of Lin and well evern Harden was to push it. Thats not happening as much I dont think. Could be wrong

[KungFuJoe]

He's a good, not great player, basically. Dominates in games where the opposition doesn't have the big bodies or gameplan to stop him...and can be rendered almost useless against teams that do.

His presence on defense is impactful thought. Rockets get killed on the boards and inside when he's out.

[BaYBaller]

LOL at the team not noticeably better with Howard. It is notiecably better. Just compare our records and look at the team stats. The problem is that basically the whole Asik situation has dragged the team down, both with the whole twin tower disaster to start the season and later his refusal to suit up and now his current "injury." In my mind we'd be fighting for a top 3 spot in the west if not for this whole Asik fiasco.

[rocketsballin]

My disappointment with Dwight is that his free throws have gotten even worse as the season's progressed. At least give us 50 or 60%, this 33% stuff is just ridiculous. He went from really bad to historically bad. There's no way he's putting effort into improving his free throws and they've regressed like that.

His play outside of that has been right about where I expected.

he's just going through a ft slump. in november he shot 55% then dec 57%. he's struggling in january at 44% http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_ ... ght-howard

[tonman]

LOL at the team not noticeably better with Howard. It is notiecably better. Just compare our records and look at the team stats. The problem is that basically the whole Asik situation has dragged the team down, both with the whole twin tower disaster to start the season and later his refusal to suit up and now his current "injury." In my mind we'd be fighting for a top 3 spot in the west if not for this whole Asik fiasco.

First off this is year two with the big roster turnover. Wouldn't you expect improvement for the team even if Howard was not here and asik was playing? Considering at the end of the season last season the team was +8 then you can see the improvement isn't as grand as you think. Don't compare game 46 last year to this year. The players this year has many more games played together.

Second other players have played better than they have last year so the improvement is not solely Howard.

third consider we are paying Howard 20 mil a season.

[Zubby]

LOL at the team not noticeably better with Howard. It is notiecably better. Just compare our records and look at the team stats. The problem is that basically the whole Asik situation has dragged the team down, both with the whole twin tower disaster to start the season and later his refusal to suit up and now his current "injury." In my mind we'd be fighting for a top 3 spot in the west if not for this whole Asik fiasco.

First off this is year two with the big roster turnover. Wouldn't you expect improvement for the team even if Howard was not here and asik was playing? Considering at the end of the season last season the team was +8 then you can see the improvement isn't as grand as you think. Don't compare game 46 last year to this year. The players this year has many more games played together.

Second other players have played better than they have last year so the improvement is not solely Howard.

third consider we are paying Howard 20 mil a season.

Well only 3 of the top 8 rotation guys from last year are still on this years team. Then you now have Jones/Dmo featured at the 4, no Smith, no Asik, Bev misses a month.
Now trying to incorporate the best big in the league, currently winning 63% of their games up from 55% last year.

Not too bad

[LarsV8]

Howard has been beyond all expectations.

I thought we would see the Dwightmare stuff continue on.

The guy has been a saint.

[BaYBaller]

LOL at the team not noticeably better with Howard. It is notiecably better. Just compare our records and look at the team stats. The problem is that basically the whole Asik situation has dragged the team down, both with the whole twin tower disaster to start the season and later his refusal to suit up and now his current "injury." In my mind we'd be fighting for a top 3 spot in the west if not for this whole Asik fiasco.

First off this is year two with the big roster turnover. Wouldn't you expect improvement for the team even if Howard was not here and asik was playing? Considering at the end of the season last season the team was +8 then you can see the improvement isn't as grand as you think. Don't compare game 46 last year to this year. The players this year has many more games played together.

Second other players have played better than they have last year so the improvement is not solely Howard.

third consider we are paying Howard 20 mil a season.

This team is very very different than last year's team. Out of the top contributors from last season the only one you can say really improved was Parsons, and even then only slightly.

[tonman]

LOL at the team not noticeably better with Howard. It is notiecably better. Just compare our records and look at the team stats. The problem is that basically the whole Asik situation has dragged the team down, both with the whole twin tower disaster to start the season and later his refusal to suit up and now his current "injury." In my mind we'd be fighting for a top 3 spot in the west if not for this whole Asik fiasco.

First off this is year two with the big roster turnover. Wouldn't you expect improvement for the team even if Howard was not here and asik was playing? Considering at the end of the season last season the team was +8 then you can see the improvement isn't as grand as you think. Don't compare game 46 last year to this year. The players this year has many more games played together.

Second other players have played better than they have last year so the improvement is not solely Howard.

third consider we are paying Howard 20 mil a season.

Well only 3 of the top 8 rotation guys from last year are still on this years team. Then you now have Jones/Dmo featured at the 4, no Smith, no Asik, Bev misses a month.
Now trying to incorporate the best big in the league, currently winning 63% of their games up from 55% last year.

Not too bad

We played musical chairs last year with the pf spot. Asik like Dwight was our only big post guy. We still won games and scored points and gave up a ton of points. Dwight is not a godsend to this team. We had NO real offensive post game last season so you bring in someone with a back to basket game and we would have improved from last season. He is better behaved then when he was with the Lakers but he still doesn't buy in to everything and all these posts about not wanting to run pnr that is what separates a superstar from just a star.

When I said noticeably different it has to be taken in context with whether you added another player to a team because we are adding a player making 20 mil plus so he is going to make a diiference but is that difference noticeably more than bringing in someone making 10 or less? Remember asik was averaging 10/10 and he wasn't the 2nd option on this team. So we paid 20 mil to get 7 pts and 3 reb more per game and changing the offense to go inside at least some time. This is why he hasn't been as big a factor. He is a two time nba defensive player of the year and we still suck on defense. And no it's not the PG spot that is the reason we are so bad there too.... We just lost two games to Memphis ateam who could put out multiple bigs and we see trouble inside for Houston. We have the twin tower issues.

Now the potential to be better is there for this team but just when we see the true potential of this t ram we revert back and Howard is part of that issue as with the other players.

And not 3 of 8. Parsons harden Lin Beverly asik counts as 5 and was a lineup commonly used last season when the rockets went small. You can't just go down and pick the top minutes players. Beverly had established he was backup and started for Lin in playoffs. But for season brooks and Douglas averaged more mpg. The pf spot was a position by committee so there were players with more minutes than Beverly.

[Slava]

There is a major improvement in the most used line up from last season and this.

12-13: Lin-Harden-Parsons-Patterson-Asik ORTG: 108 DRTG: 108
13-14: Beverley-Harden-Parsons-Jones-Howard ORTG: 114 DRTG: 102

Last season's best line up with atleast 200 mins was:

Lin-Harden-Parsons-Motiejunas-Asik: ORTG: 114 DRTG: 105

That's still slightly worse defensively than this season's and pretty much the same offensively. The improvement hasn't been drastic but there is enough evidence to suggest Howard's presence has improved the team consistently.

[LarsV8]

Lin-Harden-Parsons-Motiejunas-Asik: ORTG: 114 DRTG: 105

That's still slightly worse defensively than this season's and pretty much the same offensively. The improvement hasn't been drastic but there is enough evidence to suggest Howard's presence has improved the team consistently.

Yea, but what is the minutes played on that lineup.

[cw3k]

Howard is all raw power, he has no skill. Howard will be great as long as he can bully the other team's big, but can't do a thing when the other team big is strong.