Getty Dwight Howard with Anthony Davis.
The Los Angeles Lakers currently sit in first place in the NBA’s Western Conference standings with a 49-14 record.
Guided by head coach, Frank Vogel and All Star LeBron James, the Lakers surprised many early in the season with the defensive prowess.
Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard have been superb for LA.
On a recent episode of the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Turner Sports’ Jared Greenberg checked in and discussed Howard and Davis.
Check out a snippet from our dialogue below.
Jared Greenberg On Dwight Howard:
“Yeah, my thing that I’ve always said about Dwight is that he’s a victim of his age. If Dwight Howard had grown up and been in the NBA in the 90’s, he never would’ve been a center or big as most centers. He would’ve been a power forward and his numbers and defensive presence would have been appreciated a lot more. Now I’m not saying that he would be neem better than Malone or Barkley or any of these guys, but I’m just saying what Dwight Howard accomplished was he was a victim of time and circumstance and being on the Magic. The worst thing that happened to him was that he was the ‘next’ Shaq in Orlando. Like if Dwight Howard had been drafted to New York or Atlanta or wherever, those comparisons to Shaq wouldn’t be there and he was a totally different player than Shaq. And again, for a dude that won Defensive Player of the Year three times in a row, and his rebounding numbers were like — again, much like Steph Curry’s shooting; Dwight Howard was rebounding at a rate that nobody could keep up with in his heyday.
Jared Greenberg on drawing the line between center and the power forward positions:
“I think it’s kind of a ridiculous question at this time because you really can’t. You know, like — I remember I had a report over the last summer right after Anthony Davis was acquired and I spoke to him when he was with the Lakers and basically they were going to have Cousins and then Cousins got hurt and they were like, “Listen, Anthony Davis doesn’t want to play center, so we’re not going to force him to play center. We’ll find another way to put him at the power forward.” and so just that’s just the thing; if we’re going to criticize guys and I’ve been heavily critical of Anthoiny Davis not wanting to play center, and at times I think that it had potential to hurt the Lakers but they’ve overcome it fairly well so far this season but let’s go back to Tim Duncan and for whatever reason that was in place. He was the center on the Spurs but they never listed him as the center. He goes down into the argument of the greatest power forward of all time. Is that fair to Karl Malone or Charles Barkley or anyone else you want to put in that conversation? Because Tim Duncan really didn’t play all that much as a true power forward, he played center in his peak prime years in his minutes on the court. I dont where to have this conversation. Like I just wish — I think the conversation has to start with the NBA in the All-Star game and then more importantly, with All-NBA. I’ve had the privilege of the last several years of being a voter for NBA awards and the thing that is the most difficult thing to do is when you vote for your All-NBA Teams and you vote for your All-Defensive Teams you have to select 2 guards, 2 forwards, and a center. And it just doesn’t make sense to do that anymore. I know that this would hurt and this would be a difficult transition, it would be a totally new way doing things. But we need to go with the five best players. Nobody cares that you’re a forward anymore. The conversation is who are the best five players. For the All-Star Game, All-NBA, All-Defense, we just need to list the five best. When people say at the end of the year because they’re three All-NBA teams (First Team, Second Team, Third Team) oh these are the 15 best players in the league… No it’s not. It’s the six best guards, the six best forwards and it’s the three best centers. It’s not the fifteen best players. So if you really want to get into these conversations which I think what our part so much fun, sometimes we want to bang our heads against the wall with these conversations, but they would be a lot more fun if we could truly have them along the lines how the game is played, how the game is coached to make it a more fair conversation to talk about the best players.”