In this historically unpredictable NBA season, we’ve covered the championship cases for the Portland Trailblazers, OKC Thunder, Atlanta Hawks, Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. Today, we look at the Houston Rockets and Dwight Howard, their curiously flawed star center.
March 3, 2015
Playing elite NBA championship basketball requires many distinct qualities. First, you must have that extra gear for the playoffs (and yet another for the Finals) regardless of how well the regular season went.
You need all twelve players to be on the same page, regardless of whatever interpersonal issues the team carries (and they all carry a few). Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant disliked each other vehemently at times, but that didn’t stop them from winning three straight titles together.
You need a unified team that is committed and consistently on overdrive. You need a team that just wants it more than their opponents.
In short, these attributes contribute to two of the most important factors in an NBA Championship bid: true desire and mental toughness.
Professional basketball fans over the age of 30 have lived through a tougher, more physically and mentally demanding era of NBA basketball that younger fans simply haven’t experienced in the current family-friendly age of the NBA.
That’s one of the reasons star players like center Dwight Howard (Houston Rockets) and power forward Blake Griffin (LA Clippers) have as many detractors as they do fans. Talent means a great deal in the NBA, but that alone will never deliver a title. You need mental toughness and a relentless drive to be the best every single day. You need leaders with true presence who will lift the team above the sum of its individual parts. That’s how championship teams are born.
Dwight Howard has more natural talent than he knows what to do with. But he has never shown the required drive and mental toughness to truly excel. He is the second best player on his team, and his easygoing approach to basketball just isn’t enough, especially at a time when he’s passing his athletic prime.
However, this is a freak NBA season. Usually, teams like the Rockets don’t have a realistic chance to reach the Finals regardless of their regular season record. But this is a historically open NBA season with the deepest field of credible contenders ever, and there are no truly elite teams.
So, even a perennially flawed “contender” like Houston actually has a chance of winning this year. It’s a golden opportunity. But will they be able to take advantage?
In short, no. Let’s have a look at why your money is better spent elsewhere.
The Curious Case of Dwight Howard:
I’m no fan of Dwight Howard. I like my superstar players to actually give a damn every game. I like seeing them care enough to add a couple of iron-clad moves to their game every single summer. I like to see the drive to improve all aspects of their game all the time, because guess what? THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN.
The margin of error in the NBA Playoffs is so thin that every single unit of preparation could be the factor that dictates your glory or your doom. Dwight Howard has never shown he wants it all that bad.
For the first five seasons of his NBA career, Howard was so freakishly athletic that he could breakdance his way to total domination in a league where dominant centers are now an endangered species. I do not wish to sell Howard too short, because he was often spectacular during his early years, easily amassing around 20+ points and 15 rebounds per game with 3-4 blocks while single-handedly defending the paint with venom.
His athleticism was overpowering, but unfortunately for the fun-loving Dwight, Father Time is undefeated. You cannot just rely on freakish athleticism, especially if you are, like Dwight Howard, seriously limited on the offensive end.
The truly great ones prepare years in advance for that time when their knees won’t give them the same explosiveness anymore. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, for example, began to perfect their post-up games well before their 30’s. LeBron James was a little late to do the same, but he still crafted a deadly low post game before he turned 30. All three players used foresight to perfect a part of their game that would serve them sustainably well into their late 30’s. That’s what I call drive.
Dwight Howard has exactly two post moves and can’t shoot outside of eight feet. That’s pretty much what he came into the NBA with. He never quite figured out how to score with efficiency and brains. This year, he will turn 30 and that is an evil harbinger for superstar centers, historically speaking.
Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal are the four greatest true centers in the past three decades. All of them began to fade at the age of 30, because the NBA is particularly taxing on superstar big men.
Dwight Howard has had back surgery in the last two years. His numbers across the board are slipping. Take a look at these averages per game from 2011 and now:
2011 Dwight Howard: 22.9 points, 14.1 rebounds, 11.7 free throw attempts, 2.4 blocks
2015 Dwight Howard: 16.3 points, 11.0 rebounds, 6.9 free throw attempts, 1.4 blocks
All four of the elite centers mentioned above were better players than Dwight Howard, and far more resourceful offensively. And yet when their numbers dipped after they turned 30, not a single one of them was able to regain an elite level of play ever again. When the statistical slide starts for a center, the drop is far, far steeper than for other positions.
If these four all-time greats couldn’t halt the ravages of time, there is no way that Dwight Howard can.
As such, this current version of Dwight Howard is the only one Houston can count on, for better or worse. 2011 Dwight ain’t never coming back. He might make a small cameo (like in last year’s series against Portland), but you simply can’t count on him to be there.
Which leaves Houston’s championship hopes squarely on the shoulders of superstar guard James Harden, a credible MVP contender this season.
James Harden is a great player, no question about it. But James Harden is also one of the laziest defenders in the entire NBA. This year, he’s actually trying to play defense consistently for once, in part because his laziness was so atrocious that a video documenting them became viral on YouTube.
However, is that supposed to be reassuring? A superstar player who only started playing real defense after he was shamed into it over the course of five seasons?
That tells us one thing about James Harden: he is immensely talented and very, very good. But no player who defends as poorly as that as a habit can ever be a truly elite player, namely that rare type that can conceivably carry a team to a title by himself.
They make all the right noises about desire and wanting to win, but the facts are the facts:
Dwight Howard never made enough of an effort to improve his game for a time when his athleticism declines.
And James Harden is bloody good, but is also the type of player who seems to arrogantly play defense only when he “needs to”.
Not exactly a pair of mentally tough customers.
You know what’s also funny? Houston head coach Kevin McHale was also known for being a fun-loving guy during his storied Hall of Fame career. He may have won three championships as Larry Bird’s sidekick on that 1980’s Boston Celtics dynasty, but he drove the psychotically competitive Bird absolutely nuts with his oft-relaxed approach to the game.
Bird often moaned about how McHale could be the league’s best player if only he applied himself fully. Celtics coach Bill Fitch once asked McHale in exasperation: “Why can’t you be more like Larry?”
McHale’s response? “Because I have a life.”
That attitude, unfortunately, reminds us of his star center in Houston now, and that’s not good news for the Rockets faithful.
And let’s not forget this: McHale may not have been the most driven of superstars, but even with this in mind, he ended up being the finest low-post player in NBA history (nobody, and I mean NOBODY, had more unguardable post moves). He became the best power forward to ever play the game not named Tim Duncan. That’s how good Kevin McHale was.
Dwight Howard is no Kevin McHale.
And crucially: McHale played with Larry Bird, one of the five greatest players and competitors of all-time.
James Harden is no Larry Bird, not even a little bit close.
As such, the three main figures in Houston all have mental flaws or wavering levels of effort. The will to win cannot be taught. And the lack of it doesn’t translate to NBA titles.
Does the odds picture make things more enticing?
Actually, a little. They’re sitting on 22-1 odds right now, which is the 10th ranked odds contender. That’s a decent return for the Rockets, if only because of the unpredictability of the league this year.
Still, I can’t see Houston winning in any circumstance. My natural anti-Dwight bias plays a part, but I’d still save my bet for a better team or at least, for a team that is truly underrated.
Such as the Portland Trailblazers, who are sitting on a ludicrously generous 30-1 odds (you can even find a 40-1 offer at Ladbrokes!). I’m not saying the Blazers will win, but they are just as good, if not better, than the Rockets.
The Rockets aren’t worth a punt. They just don’t have enough mental steel. Out of the West, I’d pick the OKC Thunder (10-1), Memphis Grizzlies (12-1), Dallas Mavericks (18-1) or even Portland (30-1) before I’d pick the Rockets.
