Dwight Howard versus prime Dikembe Mutombo

[GMATCallahan]

I imagine that most would take Howard, but how about those 1994 Nuggets who famously upset top-seeded Seattle? Would you take Howard over Mutombo on that team?

[nurseryc]

Mutombo was a much better defensive player. Mutombo was a very very mediocre offensive player that made Dwight look like Brook Lopez on offence.

[ShaqAttack3234]

Tough to say. Here's a thread I made about Mutombo this season 5 months ago. http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1276951 So that covers a lot of my thoughts.

Mutombo was pretty amazing defensively on that team, and certainly more dominant right at the rim. Probably more dominant defensively around the rim than anyone post-merger except maybe Eaton. Dwight was more mobile, but not nearly as tall and Mutombo was surprisingly mobile in 1994. Denver was a poor offensive team who won on the strength of their defense and rebounding, areas Dwight also excels in, but I can't see them getting better defensively, and it wouldn't surprise me if they took a step back. I'll use peak 2011 Dwight for this comparison, and he's certainly a step up offensively, Since he was much quicker, more athletic and better post scorer so I have little doubt they improve offensively with Dwight who averaged 23/14 compared to Mutombo's 12/12, and Mutombo actually shot free throws slightly worse in '94 than Dwight did in 2011. But Denver was the worst 3 point shooting team at 28.5%, and the team didn't have much offensive talent, especially after Abdul-Rauf and Ellis.

I could see Denver winning some more games during the regular season and finishing better than 42-40, perhaps 45-50 wins, but I'm unsure if they still upset Seattle. Dwight would definitely give Denver more offense, but that Seattle defense could really make it tough for them with their double-teaming and denying. They excelled at forcing turnovers, and turnovers are a big weakness for Dwight. Prime Hakeem didn't have an easy time with them, and Dwight has never approached that level offensively. Defensively, Mutombo had a series that has to be in consideration for greatest defensive series of all-time so I'm skeptical about Dwight or anyone duplicating that to say the least. In fact, Mutombo's presence in the paint is really what caused the upset. Seattle simply couldn't get anything in the paint. Seattle really wasn't getting much offensively, except when they forcing turnovers and getting out on the break, but Mutombo did a surprisingly good job getting back.

[GMATCallahan]

Tough to say. Here's a thread I made about Mutombo this season 5 months ago. http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1276951 So that covers a lot of my thoughts.

Mutombo was pretty amazing defensively on that team, and certainly more dominant right at the rim. Probably more dominant defensively around the rim than anyone post-merger except maybe Eaton. Dwight was more mobile, but not nearly as tall and Mutombo was surprisingly mobile in 1994. Denver was a poor offensive team who won on the strength of their defense and rebounding, areas Dwight also excels in, but I can't see them getting better defensively, and it wouldn't surprise me if they took a step back. I'll use peak 2011 Dwight for this comparison, and he's certainly a step up offensively, Since he was much quicker, more athletic and better post scorer so I have little doubt they improve offensively with Dwight who averaged 23/14 compared to Mutombo's 12/12, and Mutombo actually shot free throws slightly worse in '94 than Dwight did in 2011. But Denver was the worst 3 point shooting team at 28.5%, and the team didn't have much offensive talent, especially after Abdul-Rauf and Ellis.

I could see Denver winning some more games during the regular season and finishing better than 42-40, perhaps 45-50 wins, but I'm unsure if they still upset Seattle. Dwight would definitely give Denver more offense, but that Seattle defense could really make it tough for them with their double-teaming and denying. They excelled at forcing turnovers, and turnovers are a big weakness for Dwight. Prime Hakeem didn't have an easy time with them, and Dwight has never approached that level offensively. Defensively, Mutombo had a series that has to be in consideration for greatest defensive series of all-time so I'm skeptical about Dwight or anyone duplicating that to say the least. In fact, Mutombo's presence in the paint is really what caused the upset. Seattle simply couldn't get anything in the paint. Seattle really wasn't getting much offensively, except when they forcing turnovers and getting out on the break, but Mutombo did a surprisingly good job getting back.

... good post. From the last time that I viewed the winner-take-all Game Five (in 2007), I recall Mutombo really negating Shawn Kemp and any other Sonic who tried to score at the rim. And that negation became a big problem because Seattle's two starting guards, Gary Payton and Kendall Gill, weren't really shooters. Two of Seattle's best shooters from the previous year, Eddie Johnson and Dana Barros, were gone (in the trade for Gill), and the Sonics' other premier shooter from their 1993 team, Ricky Pierce, was thirty-four and coming off the bench in a reduced role. Thus they were somewhat shaky from the outside and perhaps did not know what to do when confronted by Mutombo's shot-blocking. And Howard, as you indicated, was quite a bit shorter and not on the same level as a shot blocker.

Offensively, Howard constituted the superior player compared to Mutombo, but I wonder if he would have made Denver that much better (maybe modestly better) from an offensive perspective because of his 'black hole' tendencies. The Nuggets were fairly democratic offensively, and perhaps guys like LaPhonso Ellis and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf would not have been the same with Howard sucking up the ball in the post. Then again, as you noted, Denver was inefficient offensively (twentieth of twenty-seven teams in Offensive Rating, or points scored per possession), so just the injection of Howard's ultra-high field goal percentage (over a greater volume than Mutombo) may have created a net benefit on that side of the ball. However, I concur that the notion of a net benefit overall, at least against Seattle, is dubious.

[ShaqAttack3234]

... good post. From the last time that I viewed the winner-take-all Game Five (in 2007), I recall Mutombo really negating Shawn Kemp and any other Sonic who tried to score at the rim. And that negation became a big problem because Seattle's two starting guards, Gary Payton and Kendall Gill, weren't really shooters. Two of Seattle's best shooters from the previous year, Eddie Johnson and Dana Barros, were gone (in the trade for Gill), and the Sonics' other premier shooter from their 1993 team, Ricky Pierce, was thirty-four and coming off the bench in a reduced role. Thus they were somewhat shaky from the outside and perhaps did not know what to do when confronted by Mutombo's shot-blocking. And Howard, as you indicated, was quite a bit shorter and not on the same level as a shot blocker.

Offensively, Howard constituted the superior player compared to Mutombo, but I wonder if he would have made Denver that much better (maybe modestly better) from an offensive perspective because of his 'black hole' tendencies. The Nuggets were fairly democratic offensively, and perhaps guys like LaPhonso Ellis and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf would not have been the same with Howard sucking up the ball in the post. Then again, as you noted, Denver was inefficient offensively (twentieth of twenty-seven teams in Offensive Rating, or points scored per possession), so just the injection of Howard's ultra-high field goal percentage (over a greater volume than Mutombo) may have created a net benefit on that side of the ball. However, I concur that the notion of a net benefit overall, at least against Seattle, is dubious.

Yeah, Mutombo completely shut down the paint and it's pretty amazing how he continued to deny Kemp right at the rim, blocking and altering attempt after attempt. Kemp would go for one of his big dunks and if Mutombo didn't send it right back or stuff him, Kemp dunked a few right off the dribble, and had some wild drives clearly altered by Mutombo. As I mentioned in the '94 Mutombo thread, he blocked 9 of Kemp's shots, if we assume those are made shots(and most of them probably would have been because few block Kemp in the paint), that's the difference between Kemp averaging 18.4 ppg, slightly over his season average and shooting an even 50% as opposed to the 14.8 ppg and 37.1% he shot during the series. There's no way of knowing if he'd have made all of them, and he got a putback on one or two, but that's just the 9 he blocked, much less the shots Mutombo visibly altered and nearly blocked so it more than evens out, imo, and the point remains the same, which is that Mutombo alone took Seattle's best player completely out of his game. And of course, that's just his impact on one player. Good point about some of those players, such as Kendall Gill who never really fit there.

As for Denver's offense, I still don't see them being good, but he's going to a team that as you noted was 20th out of 27 teams so just Howard's unusual combination of volume and efficiency with the 11 additional points Dwight averaged over Mutombo likely leads to some improvement, and I wouldn't worry that much about Dwight disrupting anything since Denver didn't have a good offense to disrupt. What I do worry about his Dwight going up against a Sonic team with some good defenders to throw at him in Kemp, Perkins and Cage, plus a Sonic team that excelled at forcing turnovers. Not to mention Dwight doesn't always do a good job making himself a target in the post and sealing his man, so it's a question how consistently Denver could even get him the ball vs that Sonic defense. And even in the unlikely event he does a good job taking care of the ball, Denever didn't have the shooters to make Seattle pay for their swarming defense. While you can never truly predict what is going to happen or would have happened, I'd bet that a decent amount of Dwight's offense and offensive impact would be limited. Match ups make the fight, and that's just not a good cast or a good opponent for Dwight, imo.

[trex_8063]

On that specific team (and particularly in that specific series), no; I'd probably stick with Mutombo.

If this was a more general "who would you take to build around, prime DH or prime DM?": I'd take Howard, albeit by a small margin.

[ThunderDan9]

Great post Shaqattack, but the same can be said for Howard's Magic (and even more so): replace Howard with Dikembe, and you can't hope to replicate the Magic's successes.

These are actual teams, tailor-made for their "man in the middle", it is just natural that a player of a similar or even better quality doesn't necessarily make these teams better.
If given to a random team, I would choose Howard most of the time, because of his significant offensive edge. At his absolute prime in Orlando, he was - deservedly - somewhat of an outside MVP-candidate.

[OnePostLegend]

Great post Shaqattack, but the same can be said for Howard's Magic (and even more so): replace Howard with Dikembe, and you can't hope to replicate the Magic's successes.

These are actual teams, tailor-made for their "man in the middle", it is just natural that a player of a similar or even better quality doesn't necessarily make these teams better.
If given to a random team, I would choose Howard most of the time, because of his significant offensive edge. At his absolute prime in Orlando, he was - deservedly - somewhat of an outside MVP-candidate.

At his absolute prime in Orlando, he was the most deserving 2011 NBA MVP. Current Dwight is an outside MVP candidate.

[ShaqAttack3234]

Great post Shaqattack, but the same can be said for Howard's Magic (and even more so): replace Howard with Dikembe, and you can't hope to replicate the Magic's successes.

These are actual teams, tailor-made for their "man in the middle", it is just natural that a player of a similar or even better quality doesn't necessarily make these teams better.
If given to a random team, I would choose Howard most of the time, because of his significant offensive edge. At his absolute prime in Orlando, he was - deservedly - somewhat of an outside MVP-candidate.

Yeah, there's no question about that. I'd obviously call Dwight the superior player, and in particular, Mutombo replacing Dwight on those Magic teams would result in far less success. I don't see anywhere near four consecutive 50+ win seasons, back to back 59 win seasons and conference finals appearances or much of a chance of beating the '09 Cavs, which is when Howard's offense really came into play averaging 26/13/3 on 65% and 40/14/4 in the close out game.

[Quotatious]

Dwight's vastly superior scoring ability makes him the clearly better overall player, although defensively, I'd take Mutombo. Certainly close on defense, but Dikembe was one of the top 5, or likely even top 3, rim protectors ever.

To build around, Howard is clearly the better option, not really close.

[SHAQ32]

In today's game I might take Mutombo. Back-to-the-basket scorers aren't featured as much and Mutombo is probably top 3 def. anchors ever and can still manage to give you 10 points, without turning the ball over 7-8 times.