Dwight Howard Discussion: The Taiwan Terror

What? You mean you don’t like Marc’s 5 points and 4 rebounds a game, as he put up nearly identical stats as Robert Sacre’s best season? The biggest myth IN MY OPINION, is the floor spacing myth. People act like Gasol is prime Dirk shooting 5-6 threes a game, when in reality he only shot 2 a game. The only credit I’ll give him is he’s a decent passer, but his absolute lability in the pick and roll game nullifies it. Opposing point guards lick their chops when he’s in. I respect his overall body of work over the course of his career. He was a bad man in Memphis with Randolph. But we got him about 3 years too late.

 

amazing we won any games, much less were the #1 defense and better than we were with howard/mcgee before AD went down, right?

i guess the supporting cast just got THAT MUCH BETTER to compensate. hadn't considered this excellent theory.

 

We certainly did get him 3 years too late, in an ideal world we kept Brook Lopez and had Dwight Howard back him up for the last few years.

However, hard stats like points and rebounds don't show total impact. A lot of Marc's offensive issues last year stemmed from us as a team not having the ability to create and score. Marc's passing was nullified by this point just as much as him not being a threat on the roll. We now have a few cutters he can pass too and plenty of shooters. I'm happy with Marc only taking 2 three's a game - we have WB, Lebron, AD, Melo, Nunn and possibly Monk, all above him in the offensive pecking order.

Marc can still defend and knows where to be positionally. So I don't see the issue with him playing around 15-20 mins a game. We have Dwight to give a different look for 15-20 mins - who is also still a good defender and roll man - and AD for the remaining 10-20 mins at C.

 

Lol the first 3 letters of Gasols name is gas and he's definitely out of it

 

Except your point isn't really a point because we didn't have McGee or Howard last year. Same thing I was saying before myself, Howard deters rim attacks more then Gassed-ol. It's not a quantifiable stat though because they don't count less drives to the bucket...

I agree to disagree with your opinion but I think you do make some valid points other places. We're just not gonna agree here. Howard has way more in the tank, is faster with better lateral movement and still plays above the rim. Gassed-ol can't even jump off the floor anymore (not like he ever could)..

 

I think with a roster like ours, we can only benefit of having a guy with Gasol's experience and BBIQ that will make the Nunn's, THT's and Monk's better.
Let's also not forget the impact in training too

As for in-court play, I don't see him having many minutes if any without AD. He probably starts both halves, gives it a 6-min run and then may get a few extra 5-10 minutes during the game depending on matchups. That's just the perfect time for someone like him at this point

 

Dayam Dwight …. way to work on what’s important! Not FAT. I wonder what that tube weighs? Would love it if THT was in that same workout class with Dwight seeing the old man get after it with that kind of defensive movement and strength drills instead of planning to do a home movie remake of Rocky. (unless one of his uppercuts gets used on Beverly, Haren, CP3, Crowder or name your fave I’m missing)

 

we had them the year before and weren't better when everyone was healthy.

i think it is quantifiable (to a degree) and they do track it. and iirc, someone demonstrated that you are correct--teams drove and scored slightly more in the paint against us last year than they year before (+3ppg in the paint).

HOWEVA: our defensive rating overall was better. who cares about deterring one extra drive per game when your defense is more efficient overall?

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-efficiency?date=2020-10-12

it's a small difference, but the lakers were the best last year and the 4th best when they had mcgee/howard (and AD for a full year).

howard's lateral movement is just as bad, which is why we didn't play him against smallball teams where we can't just park him in the paint. he and gasol are the same in this way (mcgee, too, actually).

you are correct that howard can still jump. he rebounds more, and he is a lob threat (though overstated a bit there i think).

gasol is equal to howard in defensive positioning and has great hands/timing on blocks, is a fantastic passer, and is a credible three point threat that hits near 40%.

pointing at his lack of athleticism as a reason why he's not effective, and then arguing that he was never athletic is an odd turn to me. you're right: he was overweight and unathletic when he was the dpoy. he was overweight and unathletic last year, when he basically graded out as good on defense as howard did.

i'll continue to be happy we have both instead of denigrating the guy who was part of some of our best lineups last year and will likely be the starting c.

 

or ate Taco Bell. Totally possible.

 

We won the championship the year before so uhhmmm....yea it worked. You can go with a completely stats driven metric argument but I know what I'm watching. To say that Gasol has the same lateral movement/quickness as Dwight is also categorically false, athleticism wise there's no comparison and it's more noticeable at this stage in the respective careers.

It's hard to compare the years of Howard/McGee to the following year with Gasol because of injuries on last years team. As far as playing Howard at the 5 against small ball lineups though, you would still go AD here. Howards never been great for small ball line ups even in his prime.

Overall better defensive career = Gasol

More left in the tank as of today = Howard

As far as stats
Gasol Averaged career lows in:

points 5.0
field goals per game 1.7
field goal attempts 3.7
2 point field goals attempted .7
Free Throw Attempts 1.0
Defensive rebounds 3.4
Steals .5

and the argument that he shot 40% from beyond the arc doesn't hold much water when he only averaged 2.3 attempts per game so essentially he made 1 a game. That's playing with LeBron too who usually makes capable shooters even better.

When we had Howard and McGee with our big ball line-ups we ranked 6th in offensive & 4th in defensive efficiency across the league for entire year. We were much more balanced on both ends of the floor where last year year we ranked 1 in defense but 24th in offensive efficiency. I personally like the balance better and will take 2019's team over last years.

Alas, we are debating something that is futile anyways because....salary cap lol. We have to take what we can get at this point and we have done very well in free agency. I'm super excited about this year. Always good to chop it up with ya @abeer3 cheers ma dude

 

Man been working on his 3pt shot. Mechanic seems smooth.

I'm not sure I'm mentally prepared for Dwight Howard to shoot 3s every game. It would probably be the most crazy skill development

 

This reads like a UFO sighting. You got any proof of this?

 

Boy howdy it sure would. If true Dwight is really making a push to start. Gotta respect it. He did hit something like 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4 threes as our last season wound down.

 

I don't think any Laker has been in the gym as much as Dwight has this summer. Lifting. Getting up shots. Or both. Every single day there's a new IG story, IG Live, or there's a new pic/vid. That's not saying our other guys haven't been active. Most of them have, but Dwight's on a whole nother level.

 

"real 'oppy' outside"




That aside ... GO Dwight!!

 

very low release point on jumpers, but great to see him putting in the work.

 

just built in a lab.

 

Reminds me a lot of me.