Where do you rank Dwight Howard defensively all-time?

[dakomish23]

Apologies for the tangent OP but

I can't believe Tim Duncan never won the award. He was hands down one of the greatest defenders in NBA history. What an absolute joke.

https://www.landofbasketball.com/awards/all_defensive_teams_player_total.htm

He is the all time leader in all NBA defensive team selections - 8 first team, 7 second team

[Dmagic]

I rank him behind all the great defenders of our time. he is one the best rebounders and rim protectors in his early days in orlando. but when he wanted the offense ran and fed three him he inevitably disappointed. he was never good offensively or wise to stick to his roots. he was an idiot to say the least and still is. edit I take that back... he may be top 20 all time defesive. and he really helped his legacy with a ring in la.. but he is definitely behind ben Wallace, mutombo, Hakeem, rodman, nate the great, wilt, russel, kawhi..I have draymond and smart ahead of Dwight as well...him and harden were actually a pretty good duo tho

[Dmagic]

Dwight is def not top 75 or 150 in my eyes

[G35]

Tim Duncan is arguably one of the best defender of all-time, 15x All-Defensive most in NBA history but never won a single Defensive Player of the Year award.

Cmon man, Timmy was great but he was not one of the best defenders of all time. He ws so good, even when they had Bruce Bowen, Kobe took a **** on them in the playoffs?

Duncan led the #1 defense in the league 5 different times in his prime(1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006) including the greatest defensive rating in Modern Era(2004) and Spurs were Top 3 every single season from 1998 to 2008 yet he never won DPOY.

He was also the starting center on the 2016 Spurs which was also the #1 defense. While obviously that team had the DPOY in Kawhi and Duncan didn't play heavy minutes in his last season, also shows that even as 40 year old and after declining that Big Fundamental was still great on defense.

Absolute abomination that Duncan never won DPOY.

The reason why Duncan did not win a DPOY was because of his greatest strength, his fundamentals. Duncan knew how to defend without fouling...he was very good at disrupting shots around the rim....using his fundamentals. That does not show up in individual boxscores or highlight reels. Tim did not go for the blocked shot every time, instead settling for obstructing the shot.

I know others may disagree, but one of the best defensive series I ever saw Duncan play was the 2005 playoffs vs the Suns. The Suns had ran every big man off the court that year...none of the bigs could keep up with Amare and Marion who ran like gazelles. Then they had 3pt shooters everywhere in QRich, Joe Johnson, Barbosa and of course Steve Nash. So you couldn't collapse or double Amare.

This is one of Greg Popovich's best strategic games imo, where he concluded that the way to beat PHX was to limit their 3pt shooting. Run them off the line and make them shoot 2pt shots. Well how do you do that? Tim Duncan. They left Tim Duncan on an island with Amare and stayed with all the shooters. But the first imperative Popovich told Duncan was that he had to get back on defense on every shot. It was around G2 when I started watching Duncan only and watching him run back on defense and just get in the paint and be the anchor of the defense.

How many big men even today get back on defense on every play? Not Anthony Davis... Joel Embiid...not Rudy Gobert. With Duncan getting back on defense that meant Bruce Bowen, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobli, Brent Barry were able to stay with the shooters. They did their job and Duncan did his job.

Now the laymen would point out and say that Amare destroyed Tim Duncan...but the Spurs won the series 4-1 destroying the #1 seed quite easily. In five games the Suns attempted 75 3PA's for an average of 15 per game. They had been #1 in the league that year averaging 24.7 three's per game. I don't think there was another big man in the league at that time that could duplicate that....looking at you KG.....

[Dmagic]

duncan is the most over rated player in nba history.. behind lebron

[Kobe187]

Everyone on the list was a better defender in their prime. Dwight had the athleticism, size, rebounding, and high-motor but lacked the elite defensive awareness and lacked elite defensive skills.

[CoP]

Prime Dwight Howard was as good a defender as I have ever seen. All-time he's behind several that had longer peaks.

[iggymcfrack]

Tim Duncan is arguably one of the best defender of all-time, 15x All-Defensive most in NBA history but never won a single Defensive Player of the Year award.

Cmon man, Timmy was great but he was not one of the best defenders of all time. He ws so good, even when they had Bruce Bowen, Kobe took a **** on them in the playoffs?

WTF are you talking about? Kobe went up against Duncan and Bowen together 3 times. These are the results:

2002: 26/5/5 on .486 TS%. Lakers don't score 100 points in a single game in the series.

2003: 32/5/4 on .533 TS%. Kobe averages over 4 turnovers per game and is -22 for the series as the Lakers lose in 6.

2004: 26/6/6 on .534 TS%. The greatest superteam ever assembled with Shaq, Kobe, Payton, and Malone averages 88 PPG for the series.

If Kobe "took a ****" in any of these series, he maybe **** the bed or **** his pants, but he certainly wasn't **** on the Spurs.

[Tottery]

He was one of the best defensive center's of all time before his back problems. Great rim protector and had good lateral quickness to defend pick and rolls. If I'm not mistaken, he is the only player to win DPoY 3x in a row.

[Ambrose]

Very high. At his best he was carrying some awful defensive teams to stellar results. It's a shame his back issues kept him from having a prolonged prime. He's absolutely a top 75 guy ever, and the back issues kept him from being in the top half of that.

[Bergmaniac]

Very high. At his best he was carrying some awful defensive teams to stellar results. It's a shame his back issues kept him from having a prolonged prime. He's absolutely a top 75 guy ever, and the back issues kept him from being in the top half of that.

it still amazes me to this day we were the 3rd best defense in 2011 with a starting lineup for most of the season consisting of Dwight, Brandon Bass, past his prime Hedo, past his prime Jason Richardson who was a complete turnstyle on D at this point, and 5'11" Jameer Nelson and with main bench players JJ Redick, Ryan Anderson, Quentin Richardson and the corpse of Gibert Arenas. We even played 6'8" Bass at centre when Dwight rested because we had no actual centre-sized players on the roster after the early season trades.

[UcanUwill]

Prime Dwight is lost in history of how underrated he is now. I understand it is easy to hate and underrate him, but at a time, before season would start, you knew he will be DPOY, I am not making this up, it was a lock, owerwhelming betting favorite, in an era with Duncan and LeBron and KG, he was head and shoulders. He is all timer defensively, top 5 maybe ever? Just his prime was short lived.

09-12 something range, he was third best player in the world, clearly IMO, behind LeBron and KD. If you dont take him third back then, you are a fool. Should have been MVP in 2011, I dont care what Bill Simmons think, that man carried LeBron like trash to the finals and was the only reason why Guys like Jason Collins and Kyrylo Fesenkp and washed up Shaq even had a job in the league. Dwight stoppers were a thing, in theory, all they could really do is foul out against him in 12 minutes, but the real strength of Dwight was always the defense.

[Childs]

Basketball star Dwight Howard has drawn a fierce backlash in China after he called Taiwan a "country" in a video.

The 37-year-old American's comments came in a commercial appearance alongside Taiwan's vice-president.

His remark was criticised as advocating "Taiwan independence" in China, which sees the island as a breakaway province.

Howard later told local media: "If I offended anyone in China, anybody, you know, I apologise."

Taiwan views itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland, with its own constitution and elected leaders.

The video was created to promote an event which invited people to participate in a contest where winners spend a night at Taiwan's Presidential Office.

The eight-time NBA All-Star, who is famous in China where the sport is hugely popular, moved to Taiwan to play in the local league after he left the Los Angeles Lakers in 2022.

In the two-minute-long promotional video, the player said in English he had gained "a whole new appreciation of this country" since he arrived in Taiwan.

Taiwan's Vice-President Lai Ching-te, who played the director in the commercial, also described Taiwan as a "free country" when he mentioned that people who stay at the Presidential Office might bump into President Tsai Ing-wen when they go out for a late-night snack.

The video, published on Wednesday, was fiercely criticised in China.

The hashtag "Howard Taiwan independence" has been trending. Since last night, it has been read more than 400 million times on social media platform Weibo.

"Is he crazy? The promotional video has obvious Taiwan independence characters, how could he agree to do it..." wrote a basketball-focused account in a widely seen post.

Howard's official Weibo account, which has 1.6 million followers, has been flooded by negative comments. "Goodbye Howard, I will never like you again," one said.

The Global Times, a state-owned newspaper, wrote that Chinese people demanded an apology from Howard.

Taiwanese have also reacted to the row. "You won't be able to find this kind of freedom in China," one Facebook user wrote, referring to the chance of spending a night at the Presidential Office.

On Friday, while speaking at a public event in Taiwan, Howard claimed he had been misinterpreted.

"It was not my intention to harm anyone," he says. "I don't want to get involved in any politics. I am a human, and I have the right to speak."

His team Taoyuan Leopards didn't respond to the BBC's request for comment.

This is not the first time a US basketball star has been caught in a row with China.

Boston Celtics player Enes Kanter came under fire in 2021 after calling President Xi Jinping a "brutal dictator".

Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have been rising in recent years. China's military last month conducted a three-day military exercise rehearsing the encirclement of the island as President Tsai returned from a trip to the US.

And a visit from former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year triggered China's largest show of force in years, with a series of military exercises involving fighter jets, warships, and the firing of ballistic missiles.

[Fencer reregistered]

The lack of defensive talent other than Dwight on the Orlando teams that had great defenses was remarkable.

Or so it seemed then.

SvG was ahead of his time.

[Fencer reregistered]

Very high. At his best he was carrying some awful defensive teams to stellar results. It's a shame his back issues kept him from having a prolonged prime. He's absolutely a top 75 guy ever, and the back issues kept him from being in the top half of that.

it still amazes me to this day we were the 3rd best defense in 2011 with a starting lineup for most of the season consisting of Dwight, Brandon Bass, past his prime Hedo, past his prime Jason Richardson who was a complete turnstyle on D at this point, and 5'11" Jameer Nelson and with main bench players JJ Redick, Ryan Anderson, Quentin Richardson and the corpse of Gibert Arenas. We even played 6'8" Bass at centre when Dwight rested because we had no actual centre-sized players on the roster after the early season trades.

Bass was an underrated defender, but your general point stands.

And by the way, I now have three reasons to mention Big Baby Davis:
-- Dwight concussed BBD once. A ref somehow got under BBD and kept him from collapsing to the floor.
-- BBD was surprisingly effective at defending Yao. Immovable strength evidently was useful against him.
-- BBD and Bass were eventually traded for each other.

[bstein14]

When Barkley retired many considered him the best player ever without a ring it’s pretty clear that Duncan is the best defender ever and it bout a DPOY award.