Getty Dwight Howard #21 of the Washington Wizards reacts after a play against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
An Olympic gold medalist, NBA Eastern Conference Champion and eight-time NBA All Star, Dwight Howard had it going on earlier in his career.
The 2009 NBA Slam Dunk Champion has averaged 17.4 points and 12.6 rebounds during his career but injuries over the last few years have hampered him.
The Orlando Magic’s former No.1 overall pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, missed a significant amount of time on the basketball court and as of March 28, he’s missed 67 of the Wizards’ 76 games.
The Washington Post’s Candace Buckner says Howard will miss the rest.
Per Buckner:
Howard underwent spinal surgery in November, has not rebounded from a hamstring injury that interrupted his recent on-court rehabilitation. The setback, combined with the fact that only six games remained on the schedule after Wednesday’s game in Phoenix, will likely mean Howard’s first year with the Wizards included only nine game appearances.
“It’s pretty safe to say,” Brooks said when asked whether Howard was done for the year.
Howard only played in nine games this season. In those games, he posted 12.8 points and 9.2 rebounds per contest.
Could you imagine a healthy Dwight Howard in today’s traditional center deficient NBA?
“Well, I mean, the game is different,” NBA insider, Chris Broussard told me on the Scoop B Radio Podcast.
“It’s darn near an entirely different game. You know, the three-point shot was not a big part of teams’ offenses. Scoring was much lower, the game was much slower, defense was much tougher. You could hand check, it was a lot more physical. When Jordan or anybody else drove to the lane, you could get hammered.”
Some consider the 90s to be the golden era of basektball. There’s an advantage to it, too!
“It was the greatest era of big men in NBA history,” Broussard told Scoop B Radio.
“Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Alonzo Mourning. I mean, think of Dwight Howard in his prime when he was clearly the best big man in the league. Dwight Howard was about as good as Alonzo Mourning. Alonzo was like the fifth best center in the league at that time and that’s what Dwight would have been.”
High praise for Howard, there!
“So you watch the highlights from back then of how packed in the paint was, how the game was played much closer to the basket, so it was, I mean, I’ve had former players tell me you can’t even, the age of comparing players is over because the game is so different,” Broussard told Scoop B Radio.
“You watch James Harden, what he’s doing, and he’s fantastic. But this is all about the three-point ball. There’s no way he’s putting up these numbers without the three-pointer, he’s shooting, like, in this stretch, he’s shooting about 15, 16 three-pointers a night. He’s had games where he’s taking more three-point shots than high-volume shooters take total shots, you know? And Russell Westbrook, the triple-double average, which is, again, extremely tremendous. He’s going to go down an icon because of it. To average a triple-double for the third straight year. But that’s related to the three ball. The jump shot makes long rebounds and makes it easier for perimeter guys to get rebounds.”