Howard Hasn’t Measured Up to Greatness

- The Season's Over -

Howard Hasn’t Measured Up to Greatness

June 12, 2009

Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan

Despite helping to lead the Orlando Magic to it’s first ever NBA Finals victory in Tuesday’s Game Three against the Lakers, and also putting in his best overall performance of the Finals in Thursday’s Game Four loss, Orlando’s Dwight Howard has been surprisingly underwhelming in the championship round so far, especially for someone widely regarded as the most dominant big man in the league today.

When looking at Howard’s performance and why it’s not befitting of the league’s top big, it’s important to take a glance at the Finals performances of some the modern top bigs who came before him, and why, if Howard is to lead his team’s comeback against the Lakers and is to be considered in the upper echelon of NBA centers, his game, especially on the offensive end, needs to be taken to another level.

The first and most obvious Howard comparison would be to the last big-name Magic center, who incidently is also the last to lead Orlando to the Finals, Shaquille O’Neal. They have the same nickname, the same theme music and even the same physical style of play. But Shaq’s ability to elevate his game in the postseason, and in particular the NBA Finals, is where the comparison stops.

Shaq has elevated his scoring averages from the regular season every time he’s appeared in the NBA Finals, except for his loss to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets in 1995. And his overall playoff scoring, rebounding and assist averages are all higher than his career regular season averages. And with his three consecutive Finals MVP awards, he is generally regarded as one of the best Finals performers in NBA history.

Howard has also drawn comparisons to the aforementioned Olajuwon, due to their freakish athleticism and unusual combination of size, speed and strength. However, Olajuwon’s highly refined and utterly devastating post moves dwarf Howard’s relatively archaic offensive skill level, and much like Shaq, Hakeem was well known for putting in his best work during the post season and especially the Finals.

Olajuwon spent the Rockets two championship runs making a habit of outplaying and occasionally even embarrassing all of the top centers of his day, including O’Neal, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson, and even took it to an aging Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during Houston’s surprising run to the Finals in 1986 (despite their eventual loss to Boston).

Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon Photo Credit: Icon SMI

He also has one of the largest leaps in career playoff scoring from his regular season averages of any player in NBA history, including averaging an astonishing 33 points per game for the duration of the 1995 championship run, while his career playoff assists, blocked shots, rebound averages and shooting percentages all are higher than his regular season totals. Hakeem’s famous 1995 scoring dominance was also punctuated by averaging 10.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 4.0 blocks per game – all truly incredible numbers. And his back-to-back Finals MVPs cemented his legacy as one of the ultimate NBA clutch performers in every sense of the word.

It only seems right to compare Howard to the last great big man to grace the post season hardwood as well, San Antonio’s Tim Duncan.

Timmy D’s four championship rings were brought by postseason increases in points, rebounds, assists and blocked shots, and his three Finals MVP awards elevated him into an exclusive stratosphere of modern NBA centers/winners, along with O’Neal and Olajuwon.

Dwight Howard, on the other hand, while also increasing his post season averages in points, rebounds and in shooting percentage, still seems to be missing that certain understanding of the offensive game and the complete offensive repertoire that these other three truly great modern big men had.

His postseason scoring average this year of 19.6 points per game is the highest postseason average of his career, while the same number would be considered pedestrian, if not downright disappointing, for any of the other three mentioned centers. And his Finals output has been even less, as he’s averaging only 16.4 points per game against a Lakers squad not exactly known for its interior defense.

His assist numbers remain abysmal, at only 1.8 per game, which should be much higher for a post-up center whose team is trying to run their offense through and who is being doubled with regularity. This shows a still elementary understanding of the offensive complexities of post work, that Howard is still not realizing the full impact his physical presence and offensive skills can have on the game simply by creating matchup problems and getting his teammates involved. By comparison, Duncan averaged 3.5 assists per in the post season, Olajuwon 3.2 and O’Neal 2.8.

Howard also struggles immensely with his free throws, shooting only 64 percent in these playoffs, including 1-4 down the stretch in Thursday’s loss. It was Howard’s clutch-time misses that kept the door open for Derek Fisher’s late-game 3-ball heroics that put Orlando in its 3–1 series hole.

Breaking down Howard’s defensive numbers, after the jump…

Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal Photo Credit: Icon SMI

At the moment, on the offensive side of the ball, Howard lacks Olajuwon’s grace, footwork and refinement, Duncan’s strong basic fundamentals and understanding of the game and O’Neal’s realization of the full prowess his size and strength gives him.

Even Howard’s supposed strong point, the defensive side of the ball, has a hard time measuring up to the others. Howard’s career post season block averages of 2.6 per game lead only Shaq’s 2.2, still trailing Duncan’s 2.7 and well behind Olajuwon’s playoff average of 3.3. Those numbers become even lower if you take away Thursday night’s 9-block extravaganza, which based on Howard’s previous 35 pos season games, was more a one-game anomaly than a trend. This suggests that the reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year still has a long way to go on the defensive side before he can take his place among the NBA’s modern elite centers.

The only portion of Howard’s Finals and overall postseason performance that can be considered truly dominant has been his rebounding, as he’s averaging a huge 15.6 boards per game this post season, including 16.5 against L.A. And you can’t take that away from Howard, but he’s doing it on a team that basically asks him to grab every rebound while both forwards hover around the perimeter.

Ultimately, it will be Howard’s performance the rest of the way out that will truly write the end to Orlando’s season. Will he be able to lift the team onto his broad shoulders and take them to the promised land, as the other great modern centers have done? Or will his youth, inexperience and still rudimentary understanding of the offensive part of the game be too much for the Magic to overcome without a truly dominant scorer to pick up the slack?

And though he’s still young, and there’s many pages left to be written in the story of Dwight Howard’s NBA career — both O’Neal and Olajuwon lost their first Finals appearances only to bounce back better than ever later in their career — the initial chapters of his legacy will be cemented in these last several games of the 2009 NBA season. If he truly wants to be considered a dominant NBA big man, he’ll take this opportunity to prove it to us.

Born in Pittsburgh and currently residing in New York City, Darren is a part-time writer, part-time night club disc jockey (vinyl only, please), full-time cog in the corporate machine, both a card-carrying member of Raider Nation and the owner of several Terrible Towels, and has also had a slightly unhealthy man-crush on Hakeem Olajuwon since 1986.

6 Comments »Posted by ETB Contributor on Jun. 12, 2009 at 11:02 am in NBA

6 Responses

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to hit a damn free throw.

Posted by: Coltajerone on June 12th, 2009 at 11:50 am

I always thought Dwight Howard was more in the mold of David Robinson than any of those other centers you compared him to. They are both freakishly athletic, and they get rebounds and block shots like crazy. But they are both more or less terrible on offense. Neither can shoot like Olajuwon (or Yao) or be as physically dominating as Shaq was. And Robinson needed Duncan to finally win a championship.

When will Howard gets his Duncan? I don’t know (Rashard Lewis is probably as close as he’ll get, IF THEY LET HIM SHOOT THE BALL).

Good article!

Posted by: Johnathan on June 12th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

Why exactly can’t Howard be as physically dominant as Shaq was? Sure, Shaq is slightly bigger and stronger, but Shaq had a few guys including David Robinson, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, all of whom will probably be Hall of Fame Centers. Who exactly is Howard going up against? An aging Shaq? Always injured Yao? Those two are often considered the other two best centers (Dunca=PF) in the league right now, and both were in the All Star Game. By my calculations, Howard, with his combination of speed, strenght, athleticism, and age, he should be destroying these centers.

Personally, I contribute it to his lack of a refined post game, which I attribute to the fact he didnt go to college. All those players you talked about, Hakeem, Shaq, even David Robinson, all went to college, and all had a few years to refine their post games, and learn the game from some of the best minds. If Howard had gone to a good college, one that tailors to creating big men that can dominate (Georgetown?) he might have come into the league a few years later, but he would have had a much better overall game, and we might have been talking about him in the conversation for MVP, like a young Duncan, Robinson, Hakeem, or Shaq, instead of talking about him as the underperforming center from Orlando.

Posted by: darkdude on June 13th, 2009 at 1:24 am

Hi, Jonathan. Nice comparison of Howard to David Robinson. That’s probably the closest for Dwight right now. I always thought of Robinson, as a good a player as he was, as a step behind Hakeem, Shaq and Duncan, and that seems to be where Howard is headed right now as well without some drastic improvements to his offensive game.

Posted by: Darren on June 15th, 2009 at 10:40 am

Darkdude,

Nice job picking up on something I completely overlooked in regards to college experience. Howard would definitely be further along in his development if he didn’t make the straight leap

Posted by: Darren on June 15th, 2009 at 10:46 am

Howard is good. No doubt about it. But his offense is minimal at best. He scored 40 on a night in the playoffs but ANY player can score 40 on a night if they get hot. Howard has no range. No jump shot. No hook. No strong low-post moves. All that gets developed in college. High School is just a shooting spree where the most athletic and biggest players make a killing. They dont have to develop all these low-post moves. They are bigger, so they dunk and score over everybody. I have never approved of taking players out of high school but it is what it is. Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson, Abdul Jabbar, they all were up there with the scoring leaders all the time. Each had their own shot and their low-post moves. Howard is a beast on the defensive end. PERIOD. Until he starts posting up and getting his own signature shot, he will only be known as a defensive player. 4 years of college could have done wonders for him. Ewing needs to step up to the plate while hes on the Magic staff and teach him some moves. Some backins, some turnarounds. Dunking can only get you so far. He has the body for it, use it. Hopefully he will learn something in the offseason. An extra 10 points above what he is doing now could have saved the finals for them and made the Finals more exciting for us. What a boring series. Better luck next year.

Posted by: THEREALESTVOICE on June 17th, 2009 at 12:00 pm