Anthony Davis keeps getting ranked ahead of Dwight Howard

[picko]

If we are simply counting accolades then I think there is a clear argument for Howard, although I also think that you'd have to go pre-Bill Russell to find an era that was weaker for bigs than the one that Howard dominated. Amar'e, Bynum, Bogut and the corpse of Shaq were some of the guys making the All-NBA team during Howard's peak.

I think it's telling that Howard's career started to decline from 26 and that he was a journeyman by the time he was 30. There isn't much precedent for that among star players and I think it partly reflects the fact that Howard's style offensively was a terrible fit in the pace-and-space era. I think his career would have played out very differently had he been born five years later or had his career aligned with Anthony Davis.

So I don't think it's particularly surprising that some people rank Davis higher than Howard. In a vacuum, Davis is undoubtedly a more talented and capable basketball player. Davis just happens to play in a league with far greater big man depth than the one that Howard played in and that - combined with injuries - has led to fewer accolades.

[Doctor MJ]

Davis has only played 75 games twice in his 12-season career. Dwight has double the All-NBA teams, 3 DPOYs to Davis's none, and beats AD in Win Shares, 141-102. And Davis hasn't won any MVPs or Finals MVPs to make up the ground.

And then as far as team success as the #1 option, Dwight led the Magic to the Finals, and the Conference Finals twice. AD on the other hand only played in 13 playoff games, never making it out of the first round, prior to joining the Lakers.

I just don't get it. If you want to say AD is a better player when healthy, that's fine. But you can't say he's had a better career up to this point. Not even an argument.

So, I'll say up front that I can understand a perspective where you have Howard ahead, but obviously I side with Davis.

I want to first hit the career Win Shares. I think a key point comes with Howard leaving Orlando, and I'll speak to how I see the post-Orlando career in second, but Howard leaves Orlando at age 26. If we look at Howard & AD by career Win Shares through age 26 we get:

Howard 87.5
Davis 83.1

So clearly with Howard still having an advantage here, it's easy to see how one would see that, then consider Howard's other Win Shares, and think Howard just has a prohibitive lead.

What do I think of Howard's post Orlando time? I think he did more harm than good to his teams from that point on. One might think this is excessively punitive given that over the next decade he collected another 50+ Win Shares, and still did so at an above average rate. That would seem to be something positive, and I mean obviously, he could have been worse.

But it's always important to consider why an established star-level talent goes to a new team, and particularly when he goes to team after team after team.

To be fair, I find it interesting when any player I pay attention to changes teams, but the reality is that for most players, it's says not much about them other than they are not as high a priority as something else, which is already a given. But with a star talent, there are questions of their behavior & wishes, as well as that of their surrounding context - aka, the others who make up the franchise organization.

It's in experiencing these many changes for Dwight that I formed my not-as-valuable-as-you'd-think assessment. When Howard was coming to the Lakers, I thought they'd be incredible and that Howard would be their franchise player going forward, and I'd say most at the time would agree with only minor quibbling about whether Kobe should wear that crown a little while longer before handing it over. Also, as I've mentioned in another thread recently, Howard was my choice for MVP in '10-11 at the time, so I was actually a bit "high" on Howard relative to the consensus of the time rather than "low".

But he came to the Lakers and he didn't want to do what he was asked to do - which I believe firmly would have made him more valuable, and more valuable than any other player on the team - and complained publicly about it. On one level, even if Dwight's right and the coach is wrong, there's a question of professionalism here. While there are times that speaking truth to the press warrants breaching "keep it within the house" norms, it's a thing where you do put serious strain on the house when you do this and you're as important as Howard was. You should not be doing so lightly. You should not do so, for example, if you can express what you want another way that's not so damaging. And yes, Howard really had the best possible channels for doing this within the organization, and had a threat of "do this or I leave" that was a far more powerful stick to swing as the front office than going public with a complaint. So what was he doing? Well, not making friends to say the least.

Then consider that he was doing this because he wanted to post-up, rather than work in a pick & roll, and was then parading a stat sheet around complaining that he didn't get enough FGA . I recall a quote of Nash yelling at him on the court to get open if he wanted him to pass the ball. I think about that in terms of where Howard was positioning himself. He was going right into the heart of the interior and in doing so making it trivial for his man to stay on him. Thus what Nash was calling "not open", Howard was calling "in position". We can see a shift in paradigm going on here. Howard became obsessed with proving he could dominate the game by posting-up, and this is happening at a time when the game was in the process of innovating to a new era. Howard was doing the equivalent of bringing a sword to a gunfight.

I'm not sure how me talking like this strikes others - whether it resonates or not. If it doesn't seem like a big deal to you, then maybe that's all there is to it, but just don't confuse this for being a one time thing. Howard went from team to team because everyone knew the talent he had and that he really wasn't that old, and they saw potential for him to become a gem for them. And he kept being a problem everywhere he went, and wore out his welcome.

Here's an article that sums up more of Dwight's adventures here:

How did Dwight Howard go from being the NBA’s big man of the future to the most universally disliked player in the league?

But the sum of all of this is that I think folks need to seriously consider seeing Howard's post-Orlando career as a negative, and if not a negative, at least of inconsequential positive value compared to what he was accomplishing for the Magic compared to the near doubling of career Win Shares that happens as a result of his post-Magic career.

If you see things otherwise, I think you should speak to that, because I think that's definitely the place where we diverge the most in our assessment. I will say though, this time of divergence is a noteworthy thing because I think it speaks to a difference in effect based on how we began our respective holistic assessments.

Possibly a bigger thing for me though is how things fell apart in Orlando. It was a train wreck in slow motion.

Here's a snippet from a Windhorst article from late 2011.

Smith has made several large trades over the last two years in an effort to strengthen the team around Howard before he hit free agency in 2012, trading for Vince Carter before the 2009-10 season and then trading for Gilbert Arenas and Hedo Turkoglu during last season.

Howard said he pushed for other moves that were not made.

Two players Howard has expressed interest in getting within the past year to Smith were Stephen Jackson and Monta Ellis, sources close to the situation told Broussard.

"The stuff that I have asked for, the stuff I felt our team needed to get better, none of it has happened," Howard said. "That's not me being cocky but I want to be involved with the organization. I've been here for a long time, I don't want to sit around."

I don't think we can know just how firmly the Magic held the line on personnel preferences, but what we can definitely say is:

1) Everything they were doing, keeping Dwight was their top priority. So if Dwight asked for anything small and doable, I'm sure he got what he wanted, but if Dwight's complaining about it as if it would have made the team a champion, then he's asserting that he's a better GM than his GM...which would just be wrong to an absurd degree.

2) They did fire Stan Van Gundy because that's what he wanted, so that's not nothing. The dynamics of how all that went down is of course suitably bizarre, but in a nutshell, Howard got a coach fired who was really ahead of his time in terms of using 3-point shooting, and Howard came off looking just awful along the way....

and this was all at the start of the same off-season where he would later give his trade demand. He demanded Van Gundy gone, and then left anyway, no basketball in between. WTF? Why did he do it. Well here's what he said in 2022:

I would say when I was in Orlando, and I asked for a trade. It was like, behind closed doors, I didn't say nothing to nobody. I only told the GM. Next thing I know, it was worldwide."

I really just felt that I was too comfortable where I was there. I felt like I needed some change in my life, and I felt like people took that the wrong way, saying that I wanted to leave. But, that's one of my favorite places of all time."

There's a lot we could unpack here, but I'd emphasize a couple things:

1) If we take Howard at his word, we have to believe he was "too comfortable" after getting his coach fired. It's weird.

2) And it's also weird the way he tries to make himself a victim in the situation and then gives such a capricious-sounding answer.

What I would take away here is that there really isn't anything Orlando realistically could've done to prevent the Howard era from self-destructing. The reason why Dwight self-destructed in Orlando, is related to his issues in LA, is related to his issues in Houston, etc.

And this personally factors in for me in my career assessment more than it would for some, because I do specifically think about building around a player as a franchise.

I feel like I've written enough, but I realize I haven't done a peak vs peak type statement so I'll speak on that briefly:

I think folks should look at Dwight & AD's playoff numbers. If you haven't, you're probably not aware of how much stronger AD looks.

If I go by an all-an-one box score method like bkref's BPM, here are the top post-seasons between the two:

1. Davis 2020 +8.7
2. Davis 2015 +7.4
3. Howard 2009 +6.2
4. Davis 2021 +6.0
5. Howard 2014 +5.7
(tie) Davis 2023 +5.7
7. Howard 2011 +5.0
8. Davis 2018 +4.8

Note that Davis has only been in 5 post-seasons, so these are all years below this on the list are Howard's, of which he has 3 more above zero, and then another 6 with negative BPM.

What about +/-? Dwight drops relative to the regular season according to Cheema's RAPM, not sure what it says about Davis, but I'd guess it says he rises. If we just look at more raw stuff:

Davis has a career playoff On/100 of +4.8 and On-Off of +11.1.
Howard has a career playoff On/100 of -1.0 and On-Off of -4.5

That might seem unfair give the point I made about Howard's post-Orlando career, so here are the just the Magic post seasons:

Howard has a Magic playoff On/100 of +1.7 and On-Off of -6.1.

So yeah, On/Off was even more negative during his best years. To give a year-by-year perspective:

Because Davis has only played in 5 playoffs, he can only claim to have had a positive On-Off 5 times.

Howard played 12 playoffs, how many times was he positive On-Off? Twice.

So yeah, I think Davis has pretty clearly been the better playoff player, and that matters quite a bit more for me than how many games you miss in the regular season. Certainly Davis' health issues hold him back for me, but that's really only much of a concern when you're talking about a comparison with someone who was truly reliably great for many years, and I don't think Howard actually had that in him despite his talent.

[sp6r=underrated]

But the argument against Howard is really strong. Howard was really dim as a player and never grasped why those Orlando teams succeeded. He actively rebelled against it and preferred a style that minimized his value.

I'm still waiting for the really strong argument here.

Dwight never grasped that he himself as the defensive anchor was the reason the Magic succeeded. I'm having a hard time believing that.

And his personality was so strong that it cant be ignored or carefully managed away with a great coach.

I wouldn't call Stan Van Gundy a great coach. I wouldn't call him a bad coach either.

He wanted to be featured in the post rather than as a PNR finisher despite the fact he was more valuable being the later which was known at the time. And he was extremely aggressive in demanding management cater to this desire. A player who doesn't understand optimal strategy is common as are headstrong players. But when a player is headstrong and has bad strategic design that impact's value.

You can disgree that people should weigh this heavily. You can also argue Davis's significant durability issues outweigh the concerns I outline above. But it isn't a silly argument.

[Cavsfansince84]

I'd be curious how rapm compares these two if anyone has that data handy.

[Doctor MJ]

But the argument against Howard is really strong. Howard was really dim as a player and never grasped why those Orlando teams succeeded. He actively rebelled against it and preferred a style that minimized his value.

I'm still waiting for the really strong argument here.

Dwight never grasped that he himself as the defensive anchor was the reason the Magic succeeded. I'm having a hard time believing that.

And his personality was so strong that it cant be ignored or carefully managed away with a great coach.

I wouldn't call Stan Van Gundy a great coach. I wouldn't call him a bad coach either.

He wanted to be featured in the post rather than as a PNR finisher despite the fact he was more valuable being the later which was known at the time. And he was extremely aggressive in demanding management cater to this desire. A player who doesn't understand optimal strategy is common as are headstrong players. But when a player is headstrong and has bad strategic design that impact's value.

You can disgree that people should weigh this heavily. You can also argue Davis's significant durability issues outweigh the concerns I outline above. But it isn't a silly argument.

Succinctly put.

There's just this fundamental issue when a player decides he wants something that isn't the right thing to want. It tends to lead to a cascade of negative consequence that ruins whatever situation he's in.

Howard's not the only one like this, but he's one of the more severe cases whose consequences we can really see.

[eminence]

I'd be curious how rapm compares these two if anyone has that data handy.

Generally looks better for Howard. Davis looks pretty mediocre by rapm (it prefers Jrue as the top impact guy of the Pelicans).

One source: https://www.thespax.com/nba/quantifying-the-nbas-greatest-five-year-peaks-since-1997/

Don't have the last season or two to hand, but I don't think the pattern was really broken.

[HeartBreakKid]

I'm still waiting for the really strong argument here.

Dwight never grasped that he himself as the defensive anchor was the reason the Magic succeeded. I'm having a hard time believing that.


I wouldn't call Stan Van Gundy a great coach. I wouldn't call him a bad coach either.

He wanted to be featured in the post rather than as a PNR finisher despite the fact he was more valuable being the later which was known at the time. And he was extremely aggressive in demanding management cater to this desire. A player who doesn't understand optimal strategy is common as are headstrong players. But when a player is headstrong and has bad strategic design that impact's value.

You can disgree that people should weigh this heavily. You can also argue Davis's significant durability issues outweigh the concerns I outline above. But it isn't a silly argument.

Succinctly put.

There's just this fundamental issue when a player decides he wants something that isn't the right thing to want. It tends to lead to a cascade of negative consequence that ruins whatever situation he's in.

Howard's not the only one like this, but he's one of the more severe cases whose consequences we can really see.

How is Dwight Howard bullying his management any different than Anthony Davis?

[ShotCreator]

AD peaked higher, primed longer. Lower lows, but Howard only had a 4 year prime. Not elite before 09, not elite after the back injury in 12

[ShotCreator]

AD peaked higher, primed longer. Lower lows, but Howard only had a 4 year prime. Not elite before 09, not elite after the back surgery in 12.

[Doctor MJ]

He wanted to be featured in the post rather than as a PNR finisher despite the fact he was more valuable being the later which was known at the time. And he was extremely aggressive in demanding management cater to this desire. A player who doesn't understand optimal strategy is common as are headstrong players. But when a player is headstrong and has bad strategic design that impact's value.

You can disgree that people should weigh this heavily. You can also argue Davis's significant durability issues outweigh the concerns I outline above. But it isn't a silly argument.

Succinctly put.

There's just this fundamental issue when a player decides he wants something that isn't the right thing to want. It tends to lead to a cascade of negative consequence that ruins whatever situation he's in.

Howard's not the only one like this, but he's one of the more severe cases whose consequences we can really see.

How is Dwight Howard bullying his management any different than Anthony Davis?

Well in this specific context, Davis never tried to bully his management into playing a style built around using him for skillset he sucked at. You might argue that Davis has been frustrating in that he wants to play the 4 rather than the 5, but I'd say that's more about conserving himself for when it really matters as opposed to him insisting on playing the wrong way.

There are things in common and there are other differences, but just fundamentally the story of Howard's shortened career arc is mostly about his combination about both stubborn and wrong and stubborn in the face of being wrong. Not saying Davis couldn't ever possibly be in that situation - anyone can be stubborn and wrong and stubborn in the face of being wrong is they are convinced enough that they know something is not so - but Howard's career was consumed by this in a way that Davis' just hasn't been.

[sp6r=underrated]

He wanted to be featured in the post rather than as a PNR finisher despite the fact he was more valuable being the later which was known at the time. And he was extremely aggressive in demanding management cater to this desire. A player who doesn't understand optimal strategy is common as are headstrong players. But when a player is headstrong and has bad strategic design that impact's value.

You can disgree that people should weigh this heavily. You can also argue Davis's significant durability issues outweigh the concerns I outline above. But it isn't a silly argument.

Succinctly put.

There's just this fundamental issue when a player decides he wants something that isn't the right thing to want. It tends to lead to a cascade of negative consequence that ruins whatever situation he's in.

Howard's not the only one like this, but he's one of the more severe cases whose consequences we can really see.

How is Dwight Howard bullying his management any different than Anthony Davis?

Are you referring to him trying to get out of New Orleans?

In that case, New Orleans had really showed poor management for many, many years. It wasn't KG in Minnesota but it still was quite poor. Given that I really don't have an issue with him making clear that he wasn't going to stay.

Now if he had behaved similarily but NO was a contender that would impact my view of Davis's value. In that case I would have to assume that AD was only going to accept a career in LA which downgrades his value for most teams.

[sp6r=underrated]

Succinctly put.

There's just this fundamental issue when a player decides he wants something that isn't the right thing to want. It tends to lead to a cascade of negative consequence that ruins whatever situation he's in.

Howard's not the only one like this, but he's one of the more severe cases whose consequences we can really see.

The other thing I would add is that Howard's stubbornness had an individual glory component that makes me a harsher grader. I'm not naive. Athletes in team sports are interested in individual glory. It isn't a bad thing as it generates extra effort, Adam Smith and the baker. But it can be harmful if taken too far.

Westbrook is a near contemporary of his and is very headstrong but I've always gotten the sense that he really is focused on winning the game and his team having the best possible season.

Which is way different than Howard. And that impacts how I view both. Westbrook took maybe the most middle of nowhere location in the NBA and embraced it in a real way. And he contributed to excellent teams and then served as a franchise face for pedestrian clubs.

At least with Westbrook I'm going to have a guy who galvanizes a city and keeps interest in my club going in a way Howard plainly can't.

[Sign5]

Dwight Howard, imo was never head & shoulders the best Offensive Player on any playoff team he's ever played on. Dwight Howard's Offenses were Offenses by Committee. Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, Jameer Nelson, Vince Carter were all as good or better than Dwight Howard on Offense.

Despite Dwight Howard's Scoring Efficiency, his decision making & Turnover Economy was disastrous. 2010 Playoffs: 51 Turnovers to 19 Assists. 2011 Playoffs: 33 Turnovers to 3 Assists in just only 6 games played. Prime Dwight Howard's Touch on the basketball was terrible similar to what Russell Westbrook has been the last couple of seasons in LA. They're moving before they even fully receive legitimate control of the ball. Since Dwight can't map the court he just forces the issue, he overrelys on his athleticism to bail him out.

not a true 1st option

[Ron Swanson]

Agree Howard has had a better a career. But people don't like Dwight for other reasons, plus his game isn't as modern, plus lots of people have gone all in on AD as a player he simply never was and its hard to acknowledge otherwise.

Popularity should never matter, but it always always does.

This is something that continually irks me, and I even see the logic in preferring AD over Dwight. Davis is one of the few handful of players whom I continually see such a small sample size (21-games in the bubble) constantly propped up as his "peak" and then extrapolated throughout his career as if he's just somehow always been capable of that "when he's healthy". Personally, I prefer building around Dwight and his defensive consistency knowing that I'm getting at least 5-6 straight years of one of the most dominant anchors in league history there before the back injuries start cropping up (and it's not like he was useless after that), regardless of what my other personnel looks like.

[Doctor MJ]

Succinctly put.

There's just this fundamental issue when a player decides he wants something that isn't the right thing to want. It tends to lead to a cascade of negative consequence that ruins whatever situation he's in.

Howard's not the only one like this, but he's one of the more severe cases whose consequences we can really see.

The other thing I would add is that Howard's stubbornness had an individual glory component that makes me a harsher grader. I'm not naive. Athletes in team sports are interested in individual glory. It isn't a bad thing as it generates extra effort, Adam Smith and the baker. But it can be harmful if taken too far.

Westbrook is a near contemporary of his and is very headstrong but I've always gotten the sense that he really is focused on winning the game and his team having the best possible season.

Which is way different than Howard. And that impacts how I view both. Westbrook took maybe the most middle of nowhere location in the NBA and embraced it in a real way. And he contributed to excellent teams and then served as a franchise face for pedestrian clubs.

At least with Westbrook I'm going to have a guy who galvanizes a city and keeps interest in my club going in a way Howard plainly can't.

Indeed. It’s hard to not connect Howard’s thirst for individual glory as a throughline to everything he did, and while that’s not a problem that’s necessarily damning in and of itself - because many players correctly realize that individual accomplishment is tied to team accomplishment in a team sport like this - when it leads to pushing for bad-for-the-team choices, it implies an inevitability to his flameouts in team after team.

That inevitability is definitely something looms in mind when I evaluate careers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mogspan]

AD has never had a season better than 08-09 Dwight lmao. Dwight beat a peak athletic Lebron when everyone thought that Cavs vs Lakers were a shoe in for that year. AD could never lead a team either. Great secondary player but no, he doesn’t hold a candle to Dwight

2011 Howard > 2009 Howard; his team just performed better in '09. I've recently been arguing for Dwight in the Top 100 Project, but I think AD is clearly the superior player. He was legitimately the best or second best player in the league from 2018-2020. In 2018, he completely mogged the 3-seed Blazers in the first round before losing to the most stacked team of all-time. That Summer, he worked on his handle and wound up comfortably leading the league in box score and impact stats before the Pels shut him down after the trade request. His teams were just remarkably bad, and it's hard for non-Jokić centers to uplift trash (people forget that Kareem was missing the playoffs at his athletic peak in the freaking 70s). In 2020, AD was arguably simultaneously the best playoff scorer and defender in the league and gentleman swept the West en route to a Finals W. Dwight was great but never close to as versatile and impactive as AD, whose peak and longevity I believe are super underrated.

AD has never been top 3 ever in his life lmao. 2018-2020 is even more laughable Lmaooo. Y’all just love talking at this point. AD hasn’t even been better than Bron at any point of his career either. Again, AD on the 09 Magic prob loses to the Celtics in the second round. Prime Dwight with Bron is the best team in league. There’s levels to this

Based on what?

2018: top 3 in MVP voting, took a game off the KD Warriors, which LeBron didn't do that year
2019: led the league in RPM and box score composites until the Pelicans threw the season and shut him down, yet he still played more games than LeBron and with better numbers
2020: Was the top scorer and best defender on a team that rather easily won the title

It's not objectively true, but it's definitely not laughable. Peak AD was a monster player: GOAT lob threat with subtle but considerable gravity, all-time great defensive versatility, elite rebounding, formidable shooting, and decent passing for a big. The offensive difference between him and Dwight is much bigger than the defensive difference, and I'm not sure Dwight even has an advantage on that end.