Dwight Howard versus prime Dikembe Mutombo
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 2:47 am
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?
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ShaqAttack3234 wrote: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 wrote:... 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.
ThunderDan9 wrote: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.
ThunderDan9 wrote: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.