Half a decade ago, Dwight Howard was a serious enough MVP candidate that few media members would have questioned his selection for the award over Derrick Rose in 2011. Even looking retroactively. Life comes at you pretty quickly sometimes, if you don’t stop and look around, you just might miss the husk of that dominant Howard participating in the 2016 NBA Playoffs.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has watched the Rockets this season. Howard’s usage percentage in 2015-16 was the lowest since his rookie year. He’s been nudged into a limited role on offense, mainly consisting of sporadic lobs – more on this in a sec – and offensive rebounds which he usually doesn’t get. As a result, Rockets fans are are treated to a pleading, shouldn’t-I-get-a-foul-for-trying-so-hard expression he’ll display roughly eight times per game.
To spare all of us that reminder Howard is still just the 18-year-old kid who was drafted out of high school, the Rockets should really look to include him more in their offense. This, in turn, will spur him to more alacrity on the defensive end. You’ve heard it before: Let the big fella eat, and he’ll guard the kitchen better.
First, a few examples from Game 2 on Monday night to explain what we mean about Howard’s decreased role on offense and how it’s spreading to his demeanor and effort on the defensive end, too.
This possession from the first half perfectly illustrates not just how inconsequential Howard is to the Rockets’ attack on the offensive end, but also — and this might be even more alarming — just how unimportant Howard himself thinks he is on that end, too. You can see him battling Bogut for position at the beginning of the possession and when he’s finally got Bogut on his back on the low block, with a direct line for a Josh Smith entry pass, Dwight just turns around and shuffles back across the lane and out of the play.
We almost thought Smoove had waived him off. What in the hell was that? It’s like Dwight forgot for a moment he’s no longer a component of Houston’s offense, so he turned around and went the other way after finally getting good post position on a hard-to-handle defender in Bogut.
Dwight’s unimportance on the offensive end has bled into the one area where he actually can still add some oomph to Houston’s attack, too: offensive rebounds. Howard seems so psyched out by his irrelevance on that side of the ball, he doesn’t even think of put-backs anymore and instead will just throw the ball to the other basket.
Then there’s the lob play. Dwight’s almost always positioned along the backline as whoever in the pu-pu platter of power forwards Houston’s using that day (last night it was Josh Smith and Donatas Motiejunas) sets a ball screen for James Harden. Then, we watch Beard bounce the ball an inexorable number of times as he eventually settles on a path toward the rim. Next comes the exasperated, overt throwing up of the hands as he’s raked — or not — across the arms by a defender (last night he got a trio of 3-shot trips to the charity stripe in the first half alone).
But while Harden is doing his (I learned it by watching Russ and KD) over-dribbling iso routine, Howard is still hanging out by the basket with a half-confused, eager look on his face and gigantic hands itching to catch the lob, perhaps the one offensive move that hasn’t deserted him due to infrequency of use.
See, look at Harden lofting a poorly-timed lob Howard dunks anyway in the third quarter:
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How do you defend that? You don’t. It works particularly well when Smith or Motiejunas works a little high-low action from the elbow after James drops the pocket pass on a high screen. Motiejunas connected with Dwight on one of these in the first half, and Smith proved in last year’s playoffs he can do the same with Howard, too. Except, they don’t, or when they do, they don’t do it so well.
At one point in the fourth quarter, Harden tried to get Howard the ball again on a lob, and instead it just looked like a bad bank shot. When Harden beats his man, or Smoove and Motiejunas get open real estate in the in-between area right before the low block, Bogut or Festus Ezeli or Draymond Green has to rotate over. That always leaves Dwight open. They just don’t spot him enough — particularly Harden.
For example, here was an isolation play originating in the far corner off an out-of-bounds under Golden State’s basket. Harden beats his man, but misses the ensuing runner and Howard stands flat-footed on the far side of the basket as his man, Bogut, contests James enough to force the miss.
https://i.giphy.com/xT1XGIoPJzYrx8fCrS.gif
Yeah, Harden sometimes misses Howard.
And this affects his defense, too. How can Howard be as engaged on that end of the court if his teammates continue to treat him as a glorified Enes Kanter playing with the first team? And it’s not like Howard is emotionally equipped for his specter-like presence on offense, either.
The Warriors shot well at the rim against the Rockets in Game 2, and Howard had a team-worst -22 on/off number for the game.
Listen, if it wasn’t clear, we’re not the biggest fans of Howard off the court. By most accounts, he’s an immature blowhard, and probably always will be. But he’s also an excellent basketball player and formidable weapon on both sides of the ball when engaged. The Rockets shouldn’t forget that when they’re back in Houston for Game 3 on Thursday. Neither should Dwight.
