# Dwight Howard is a BEAST..



## ATLien (Jun 18, 2002)

The big man is developing nicely..

24 points, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots in the loss to Atlanta last night. He was very impressive, IMO. As long as Orlando doesn't let him get away, it's going to be hard to miss the playoffs when he gets better. Only his second year too. And doesn't even have a real great coach or distributor on the team, yet.

Josh Smith had 15 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots. I can't imagine who was able to drive to the hoop against their AAU team.


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## X-Factor (Aug 24, 2004)

TheATLien said:


> The big man is developing nicely..
> 
> 24 points, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots in the loss to Atlanta last night. He was very impressive, IMO. As long as Orlando doesn't let him get away, it's going to be hard to miss the playoffs when he gets better. Only his second year too. And doesn't even have a real great coach or distributor on the team, yet.
> 
> Josh Smith had 15 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots. I can't imagine who was able to drive to the hoop against their AAU team.


Dwight is going to be an exciting player in the future. I'm looking forward to watching him play in his prime.


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## Mr. Hobbes (Jul 1, 2005)

I'd take Dwight over anyone to start a franchise today.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

TheATLien said:


> The big man is developing nicely..
> 
> 24 points, 16 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots in the loss to Atlanta last night. He was very impressive, IMO. As long as Orlando doesn't let him get away, it's going to be hard to miss the playoffs when he gets better. Only his second year too. And doesn't even have a real great coach or distributor on the team, yet.
> 
> Josh Smith had 15 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots. I can't imagine who was able to drive to the hoop against their AAU team.



I surely won't disagree with Dwight being a beast. It is utterly frustrating to watch this team play though. There have been so many times where the game started out with Dwight scoring 6-8 points within the first 5 mins of the game and then he barely sees the ball the rest of the game. And there is nobody on the team with GHill out that knows how to feed him the damned ball. I'd love to see Dwight playing with a guard like Nash. He'd be putting up 25 ppg right now.

And damnit why the hell did we throw away Zaza? That still puzzles me. We could easily have the same team we do now with Zaza and Anderson Varejao coming off the bench. That would make our frontcourt infinitely better.


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## Hairy Midget (Nov 28, 2005)

I'm fond of the little guy.


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## 36 Karat (Nov 10, 2005)

WTChan said:


> I'd take Dwight over anyone to start a franchise today.


You may, but I can list at least 30 other people that wouldn't. They're all NBA GMs. He's obviously developing nicely..but having the choice of ANYONE, and picking Dwight Howard? Please. I'd like to see this come back and bite me though. He's gonna be huge.


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## BlakeJesus (Feb 1, 2006)

WTChan said:


> I'd take Dwight over anyone to start a franchise today.


To say that right now in my mind is a reach. It's possible he could be one of the better players in the league down the road...but there are much better players to start a franchise around. Though, you could be a lot worse off.


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## Hairy Midget (Nov 28, 2005)

Jameh said:


> To say that right now in my mind is a reach. It's possible he could be one of the better players in the league down the road...but there are much better players to start a franchise around. Though, you could be a lot worse off.


Really good big men are nearly impossible to find. Who would you take?


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## Amareca (Oct 21, 2002)

Amare obviously when healthy.


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## JT3000 (Nov 3, 2004)

Amare isn't healthy. And Amare won't even be in Dwight's league when it's all said and done.

As far as young (non-superstar) players go, there is absolutely no one I would take over Dwight. And it's not insane. The only other player I'd even consider is LeBron, but I find it incredibly hard to believe all 30 GM's would choose him.


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## ATLien (Jun 18, 2002)

I would take Amare over Dwight, and maybe a few others. But not many. Doubt more than 10.


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## YoYoYoWasup (Nov 14, 2004)

Don't jump on Nice, I agree with him. Aside from possibly Lebron, who would you rather start a franchise with? Dwight is still just 20, leads the league in rebounds, is an excellent defensive player already, and his offense is improving by the minute. 15.3 PPG on limited shots and 52% shooting is damn good. If the coaches are smart, he will make the all-star game. Yeah, he's on a bad team, but +/- stats show that when he is on the floor as opposed to off of it, the Magic are a much, much better team. Take Dwight off the Magic, they don't even have 10 wins right now.

Amare is great, but the surgery he had on his knee is very tricky, and it's doubtful he ever has the same explosion again after it. Just ask Penny Hardaway. Chris Bosh is a nice player, but he doesn't bring the defensive presence Howard does. Wade? Tremendous talent, but when is the last time a guard took his team to the championship without a dominant big man? Shaq is slowly on the decline and won't be around much longer.

You could very easily start an argument that aside from Lebron, the most promising young player in the NBA is Dwight Howard.


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## ATLien (Jun 18, 2002)

JNice said:


> And damnit why the hell did we throw away Zaza? That still puzzles me. We could easily have the same team we do now with Zaza and Anderson Varejao coming off the bench. That would make our frontcourt infinitely better.


You want him back? lol. He's okay, but nothing special really. Hopefully he won't have to play so many minutes if Atlanta can manage to draft LaMarcus Aldrdige.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

TheATLien said:


> You want him back? lol. He's okay, but nothing special really. Hopefully he won't have to play so many minutes if Atlanta can manage to draft LaMarcus Aldrdige.



Yeah, we'll take him back. How about a 2nd round pick? I don't think he is good enough as a starter but I'd love having him coming off the bench. Right now Orlando's big man depth off the bench sucks pretty badly. Cato is injured and sucks, Kasun gets no PT, and Garrity is soft as charmin and only hits shots once every 6 games.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

Amareca said:


> Amare obviously when healthy.



Shocker. :laugh:

I would definitely take Lebron over Dwight right now. Amare to me is a toss-up not even considering the knee surgery. Amare will always be a better scorer than Dwight although his scoring and efficiency is definitely inflated by playing with Nash. But I do think Dwight has a chance of being a more impactful player on both ends of the court than Amare a couple years down the road.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

..

Side note - Eddie Jordan told the Orlando announcers he voted for Dwight for the All-Star game. That's 1 vote!


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

YoYoYoWasup said:


> Wade? Tremendous talent, but when is the last time a guard took his team to the championship without a dominant big man?


Jordan, unless you consider Longley dominant. That was under 10 years ago too, since then we've had Duncan and Shaq as dominant big men. Detroit, I wouldn't really consider the Wallaces' dominant, it was more of a team effort.

Dwight as the #1 player to build around? Doubtful. I love him, and I'm a Magic fan but Wade, LeBron and Amare all would be better options for the future. I'm assuming we're talking about building for the future too, because otherwise a few more players would be added (Garnett, Kobe). Dwight definitely has the potential, but I'd rather take players that have reached a higher point in Amare, LeBron and Wade. They're not exactly talent to sneeze at.


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## Mr. Hobbes (Jul 1, 2005)

Jameh said:


> To say that right now in my mind is a reach. It's possible he could be one of the better players in the league down the road...but there are much better players to start a franchise around. Though, you could be a lot worse off.


I think basketball should be played inside-out. And Howard is already a dominant defensive player and rebounder. He's shown a lot of promise on offense. Wade and Lebron might be better producton wise, but the only perimeter player to ever lead their team to a championship in the modern era is Jordan (you could make a case for Billups). Amare isn't a dominant defensive player or rebounder.


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## Amareca (Oct 21, 2002)

Um Howard is a better rebounder than Amare likely that's not easy to judge though since Amare plays with another top 5 rebounder in the league, but that's where it stops. Please defender... Howard is no better.
Amare at this time of his career hat 20+ rebounding games, 40 scoring games and 10 blocks in a game explosion, Dwight hasn't shown anything like that.

And now don't start with Dwight is younger. - Amare played only 2 seasons of highschool basketball before coming to the league. That's more than a year less experience and coaching that Dwight had.

Or Steve Francis - Amare had to deal with Marbury the first 2 years.

Amare is a dominant player already right now when he is playing that's fact.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

Amareca said:


> Amare is a dominant player already right now when he is playing that's fact.


He's dominant offensively. In no other way. And you would be ignorant to not admit that Amare's offensive stats wouldn't be near as good as they are without Nash. He easily creates more easy baskets for the players on his team than any 5 guys put together on Orlando right now. Dwight would be at least a 20 ppg scorer right now if he were playing with Nash.


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## Mr. Hobbes (Jul 1, 2005)

JNice said:


> He's dominant offensively. In no other way. And you would be ignorant to not admit that Amare's offensive stats wouldn't be near as good as they are without Nash. He easily creates more easy baskets for the players on his team than any 5 guys put together on Orlando right now. Dwight would be at least a 20 ppg scorer right now if he were playing with Nash.


True. Amare is not a better rebounder than Howard. You don't argue with a sophmore that leads the league in rebounds. Howard is a better defender, because his size and length allows him to play great man-to-man defense on anyone in the league- Amare cannot guard Duncan or Yao.
Amare is not a true post player, and that does not fit my philosohpy of a ball team. I would take Dwight because he is a true post player. They say you have to play half-court offense to win in the playoffs, and Dwight size can make him a much better player than Amare ever will be in a closed court set.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

JNice said:


> Dwight would be at least a 20 ppg scorer right now if he were playing with *anyone else at point guard*.


I changed your sentence around for you, so that it makes more sense. Dwight needs to get more touches, it's plain and simple. I can't get past the fact that for the past 2 seasons we've been teased by Magic Management into thinking we'd see more Howard in the offense only to have him go for long stretches without touches.

I'd be happy with any point guard who came to Orlando knowing that they're getting paid to dump the ball to Howard and hit a few open shots when he kicks it back out. Crap, I won't be greedy I'll just take someone dumping the ball to Howard. Turn it over 5 times, but get Howard 15-20 shots. I'd be perfectly happy with Brevin Knight even if he can't hit a 3.

Amareca, Stoudemire was still playing AAU ball and lived with his AAU coach for a while. Don't even try to tell me that he wasn't getting enough training in that situation to make up for only playing 2 years of HS basketball due to his what happened at Mount Zion and his Mother. He was living and breathing basketball for that last year of HS. Amare has the offensive edge on Howard, and I'd take him over Howard right now. But Howard is ahead in defense and rebounding by far. And has the ability to be a better and differenty style of player. I hope to see Howard add some more weight, move to center and dominant with his size and athleticism to boot.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

Lachlanwood32 said:


> I changed your sentence around for you, so that it makes more sense. Dwight needs to get more touches, it's plain and simple. I can't get past the fact that for the past 2 seasons we've been teased by Magic Management into thinking we'd see more Howard in the offense only to have him go for long stretches without touches.
> 
> I'd be happy with any point guard who came to Orlando knowing that they're getting paid to dump the ball to Howard and hit a few open shots when he kicks it back out. Crap, I won't be greedy I'll just take someone dumping the ball to Howard. Turn it over 5 times, but get Howard 15-20 shots. I'd be perfectly happy with Brevin Knight even if he can't hit a 3.
> 
> Amareca, Stoudemire was still playing AAU ball and lived with his AAU coach for a while. Don't even try to tell me that he wasn't getting enough training in that situation to make up for only playing 2 years of HS basketball due to his what happened at Mount Zion and his Mother. He was living and breathing basketball for that last year of HS. Amare has the offensive edge on Howard, and I'd take him over Howard right now. But Howard is ahead in defense and rebounding by far. And has the ability to be a better and differenty style of player. I hope to see Howard add some more weight, *move to center * and dominant with his size and athleticism to boot.



I'd say the move to center has basically already happened. Dwight might never officially be labeled our "center" but he has basically been playing center this year. Most games he is guarded by the opposing team's center and is also often defending the other team's center ... not every game depending on matchups though.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

..

If Dwight finishes the season leading the league in rebounding he'd be the youngest player ever to do so. Nice.

You can say what you want about Dwight but the one thing he is great at for sure is rebounding. He's been doing it in the summer league, preseason, and regular season pretty much every game since Orlando drafted him.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

JNice said:


> I'd say the move to center has basically already happened. Dwight might never officially be labeled our "center" but he has basically been playing center this year. Most games he is guarded by the opposing team's center and is also often defending the other team's center ... not every game depending on matchups though.


Do you think that Management perceives it this way too though? See the big problem that I see is that we'll go ahead and get ourselves a big seven foot stiff to stick by Howard which isn't what we need. I can't see why we can't get another athletic big man to stick by Howard in the next draft, and that'd make the ideal partnership. The situation about positioning at the moment is similar to the Spurs and Duncan.

As for Howard and his rebounding, he's incredible. And to think that Celtics fans were comparing Jefferson to him earlier in the season saying they were about equal players.


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## YoYoYoWasup (Nov 14, 2004)

Well, it looks like Dwight will NOT be an All-Star. Instead, Rashweed Wallace makes it over him, what a joke. Why is everyone all up on the Pistons' jock? The Spurs and Mavs are only two games behind them, and they only have one All-Star each. Dwight is clearly a better player than Rasheed, and it was proven when the two went head-to-head earlier this season. I wouldn't of had a problem with C-Webb making over Dwight, but Wallace? Bull crap.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

YoYoYoWasup said:


> Well, it looks like Dwight will NOT be an All-Star. Instead, Rashweed Wallace makes it over him, what a joke. Why is everyone all up on the Pistons' jock? The Spurs and Mavs are only two games behind them, and they only have one All-Star each. Dwight is clearly a better player than Rasheed, and it was proven when the two went head-to-head earlier this season. I wouldn't of had a problem with C-Webb making over Dwight, but Wallace? Bull crap.



I wasn't sure if he'd get in but I do think he deserves it more than Rasheed. Maybe Stern will put him in.


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## lw32 (May 24, 2003)

JNice said:


> I wasn't sure if he'd get in but I do think he deserves it more than Rasheed. Maybe Stern will put him in.


Doesn't Stern usually choose a replacement of the same position? I can't see why he wouldn't pick Howard, with him being a part of the 2008 Olympic Team, the #1 pick in 2004, and a solid person it'd be a great move for the league to show the direction they're pushing towards for the future. Plus, I can't think of a player more deserving at the position. (Arenas should obviously be on the team over Hamilton).
The selections are always like this though, every year there is some big question marks. Lots of good players, not enough spots. Kirilenko didn't make the Western squad, but I don't know if he was more deserving than any of the forwards named. Parker's been solid, but better than Paul? Parker's FG% is fantastic, but he doesn't distrubte the ball at a good assist/turnover rate. Overall I wouldn't say there were any huge problems with the all-star selections besides for the 4 Pistons.


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## For Three! Rip City! (Nov 11, 2003)

JNice said:


> I'd say the move to center has basically already happened. Dwight might never officially be labeled our "center" but he has basically been playing center this year. Most games he is guarded by the opposing team's center and is also often defending the other team's center ... not every game depending on matchups though.



I'm a suffering Blazer fan out here in the NW and happened to watch the rookie game last night and for the first time had the opportunity to really watch Howard play for an extended period. Granted it was against the rooks but he was truly a man among boys out there. Extremely impressive. I had no idea how big he was at such a young age and more importantly what a presence he had in the paint. It's no wonder the guy rebounds so well. What's equally impressive is how well he defends. When you guys drafted him I was thinking power foward the whole way but after watching him and seeing his rebounding numbers, there's absolutely no reason he can't play center effectively. The only center that would have traditionally made Orlando pay for playing him at center was Shaq and let's face it his years are numbered.

Anyway, just thought you guys might be interested in an ousiders perspective. Taking a chance on Darko was extremely smart and I think people are under estimating how good Aroyo is at point guard. He's a legit starting point guard. Maybe not an all star, and maybe not a starter on every team, but he would be in the top 7 rotation for almost every team except say the Pistons.

I wish the Blazers had such a bright future ahead of them but we seem to be treading water or regressing.


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

For Three! Rip City! said:


> I'm a suffering Blazer fan out here in the NW and happened to watch the rookie game last night and for the first time had the opportunity to really watch Howard play for an extended period. Granted it was against the rooks but he was truly a man among boys out there. Extremely impressive. I had no idea how big he was at such a young age and more importantly what a presence he had in the paint. It's no wonder the guy rebounds so well. What's equally impressive is how well he defends. When you guys drafted him I was thinking power foward the whole way but after watching him and seeing his rebounding numbers, there's absolutely no reason he can't play center effectively. The only center that would have traditionally made Orlando pay for playing him at center was Shaq and let's face it his years are numbered.
> 
> Anyway, just thought you guys might be interested in an ousiders perspective. Taking a chance on Darko was extremely smart and I think people are under estimating how good Aroyo is at point guard. He's a legit starting point guard. Maybe not an all star, and maybe not a starter on every team, but he would be in the top 7 rotation for almost every team except say the Pistons.
> 
> I wish the Blazers had such a bright future ahead of them but we seem to be treading water or regressing.


It is cool to see the perspective of outsiders. It is impressive that you came out with such a positive perspective even though Dwight didn't do a whole lot or get a chance to do much in the game. I think he is definitely headed towards being a full-time center. He's been playing an awful lot of center this season.


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## ATLien (Jun 18, 2002)

He should be playing this Sunday, IMO.


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## Bron_Melo_ROY (Apr 12, 2004)

TheATLien said:


> He should be playing this Sunday, IMO.


WORD!!!


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## JNice (Jul 13, 2002)

TheATLien said:


> He should be playing this Sunday, IMO.



I can't disagree. Doesn't bother me too much because I figure he is probably a shoo-in for the next 7-8 yrs at least.


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