On Dwight Howard, Leverage, and Oversized Egos

Quick! Name the 5 biggest superstars in the NBA right now. My guess is most people shouted LeBron, Kobe, Kevin Durant, D-Wade, and one out of Dirk, Carmelo, Tim Duncan, Chris Paul or some other max-contract player. Dwight Howard shouldn't be anywhere near the top. There's nothing game-changing, enigmatic, or incredible about him or his game, to me at least. DH12 aka Superman.

Bizarro has been deemed the best at a position that has three or four other legitimate candidates, which is absurd! One look at Howard's statistics shows how little he contributes exceptionally other than shot-blocking and rebounding. Have a look at a comparison of these three big mens' stats:

Big Man A:

 26.0 PPG - 13.3 RPG - 2.0 APG - 0.9 SPG - 0.5 BPG - 45% FG - 82% FT - 2.3 TO

Big Man B:

 20.6 PPG - 14.5 RPG - 1.9 APG - 1.5 SPG - 2.1 BPG - 57% FG - 49% FT - 3.2 TO

Big Man C:

 18.1 PPG - 11.0 RPG - 1.6 APG - 1.5 SPG - 1.2 BPG - 45% FG - 70% FT - 2.7 TO

Big Man C will surprise you, being DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings. Big Man A, with his great PPG average and comparable rebounding is my favorite big man, Kevin Love. Big Man B is the underwhelming Dwight Howard. Age is what makes these stats so shocking. Dwight Howard is 26, having played eight seasons, mostly under the tutelage of Stan van Gundy. Love is 23 with four seasons under his belt. DeMarcus Cousins will start his third season next year, at the ripe age of 21. That the stats of the three are comparable is laughable on Howard's part. For someone who dubbed himself Superman, he shows none of the finesse, skill, or poise that the original, Shaquille O'Neal, possessed at his age. Howard's one NBA Finals appearance, mostly a result of great shooting from Hedo Turkoglu, a sad Cavaliers opponent in the East Finals, and a vacuum at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, showed Howard languishing with 15.4 PPG. Your 'franchise center' shouldn't be the third option on the team in big games, and too many times Howard disappears during crunch time.

The reason I bring up Howard's middling performance is for a discussion on leverage. Howard earned his leverage mostly by winning a Slam Dunk contest, which if it was the barometer for NBA success, would have players like Fred Jones, Demond Mason, Harold Miner, and Nate Robinson earning max contracts. His unnecessarily brash chokehold on the Magic franchise is detestable, mainly because the fact that he can't be moved is his own fault. Howard defied normal, traditional, and pragmatic logic by signing a one-year extension to stay in Orlando, after a year of trade rumors, throwing team members under the bus, and inconsistent play. Had he not signed the extension, he would have been a free agent on July 1st, able to sign with whichever team was dumb enough to drop $100 million on him, most likely the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets. Why he didn't just stay pat and wait is beyond me. If anything, he lost leverage because the extension he signed made him less attractive in terms of trade value. No team wants a player that doesn't want to play for them, and is constantly auditioning for their next contract, much less one that can only rebound, block shots, and dunk.

Now, if rebounding, shot-blocking, and the occasional highlight play are considered leverage to Dwight, then what does that say about him? All I can point to is an oversized ego. Howard has yet to improve his game to the 'superstar' level most people peg him at. With Patrick Ewing on his bench for every year of his career, he hasn't developed as much as an inkling of elite footwork, a jump shot, or consistent post-up game. How is it possible that he didn't pick up anything from one of the most skilled big men of all time? Howard is useless outside of the paint area. Add to that his abysmal free throw percentage, and you have a $20 million per year dud. Not once have I seen Bizarro dominate a game offensively. Never has he demanded the ball in the paint. He is just a physical freak, always surrounded by shooters, allowed to roam the paint mindlessly in search of putback dunks and easy buckets inside ten feet of the bucket. 

Ego is the reason for it. Howard saunters about the court and sidelines like a player who has mastered his craft, which couldn't be further from the truth. Had he any ounce of modesty or humility, Dwight would be embarrassed with how bad of an offensive player he is in lieu of his physical gifts. 

That he's gotten this amount of leverage with such a limited skill set is a miracle. Yet even with all of the leverage Howard has, he most likely won't end up in Brooklyn because of his debilitating salary and the fact that the Magic aren't dumb enough to trade him for peppercorns. One thing that usually comes standard with an oversized ego is a big mouth, which DH12 is known for. If it's not situations like the above infamous press conference with Stan van Gundy, it's his penchant for changing his mind more than a preteen girl with a walk-in closet. It's as if he's trying to make himself hard to deal with. If I'm an NBA general manager, I'd have to ask myself whether his spotty play and toxic attitude are even worth the 20 points, 15 rebounds, 2 steals, and 2 blocks he provides. 

Don't get me wrong... the guy's got otherworldly athleticism and potential (whatever 'potential' means these days). But for all of the trouble, you could find two or three players that do all that with fewer headaches. For all Dwight brings to the table, haven't his weaknesses, ego, and push for leverage taken that much more off the table? It's like having a delicious steak dinner, but no table, plates or silverware to eat it with. Howard is, quite honestly, the NBA's most flawed player. He needs a serious reality check, and a new nickname to clear his name in my book.

Dear NBA Lockout

Dear God... If you love us, please don't bring this back.

Comparisons are the backbone of sports analysis. You can't give a fair estimation of any player, team, era or anything related to sports without something prior to measure it up to. LeBron vs. Kobe vs. Michael. Dwight Howard vs. Shaq. Showtime Lakers vs. Kobe & Shaq Lakers. Detroit Bad Boys vs. Detroit Bad Boys v2.0. Comparisons have a way of shortening the time capsule known as sports history, so that even the least knowledgeable basketball fans can join in the discussion. The dearth of information on NBA.com, basketball-reference.com and Wikipedia give us an archive of the happenings that make the NBA great. That said, one comparison that I'd rather not even have the chance to make is that concerning you, NBA Lockout.

In 1998, after Michael Jordan willed another 3 titles out of his beleaguered limbs, the NBA was at an impasse similar to that of today. The league had seen unparalleled levels of success, notoriety and viewership. An influx of young talent, namely from the 1996 Draft had restocked the rosters with stars that still play today. Yet, no one was happy with the league. Players and teams argued about player salaries. Team owners argued with the NBA offices about how little money they were making. Fans argued with fans about who was to blame for all of the arguing. Arguments, arguments and arguments. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

NBA Lockout, in 1998 you brought my worst fears to fruition: a half-assed season; 50 games clearly devoid of the spark that made the NBA great during the early-to-mid 90s. It was painful to watch. No All-Star Game. A virtual vacuous shell of a season, that in retrospect, may as well have not even happened. An exciting, yet wary NBA Finals. These are the shadows that haunt me today, NBA Lockout. If you happen, that's all I can see. Months of deliberation and sitting in front of SportsCenter hoping for good news. Interviews with superstars and owners all blaming one another for losing money, when everyone should be bearing the onus.

At this point in NBA history, you would be absolutely destructive. Not as much from a monetary standpoint, but in terms of momentum. After your last inception, the amount of knocks that the NBA took was detestable. From waning viewership because no one could relate to stars or cared enough, to basketbrawls that painted the NBA in a thuggish light, to a vacuum of talent, it took the NBA another 8 years to regain its fire. Lockout, you would bring the NBA back into the dark ages of basketball. Those years from 1999 to around 2004 were boring by today's standards, no matter how many times teams tried to reignite themselves. Guys like Michael Olowokandi, Darius Miles, Trajon Langdon were cast into spotlights devoid of substance simply because you forced teams to look elsewhere for talent. And it's going to happen again. Just look at this past draft, all of the players that stayed in college, and it's obvious.

They say that those who don't learn from their history are doomed to repeat it. What makes your impending reappearance so sad is that you'll probably happen again next decade. In this age where the players clearly have more pull than management (just ask Carmelo), there's little reason to have a Collective Bargaining Agreement that lasts more than 6 or 7 years. Last year's free agent frenzy makes it so that every player averaging over 17 points a game thinks they can swindle their way into a $10M/year contract, and owners thinking they can buy a championship a la the Heat. Players see the dollar signs from million dollar endorsements on behalf of the league. At the same time, owners still see shrinking pockets, with 22 of the 30 franchises losing money. Owners see the balooning player egos and believe the only way to reign them in is to jump into you. Rather than have a real discussion about where the money is going, everyone wants to discuss why the money isn't going to them. Lockout, you bring the green-eyed monsters in every NBA personality out so that nobody wins. You did it in 1998 and if the NFL bears any similarity, you seem poised to do it again.

Do me a favor, lockout. Stay in the annals of NBA history. Keep all of your salary arbitration, endless meetings, arguments and debates in the past. Do me this favor and keep yourself from tainting what was a miraculous run of NBA growth with your money-hungry ideology. Do me this favor and keep the NBA from reverting back to a business. You can't decry the need for better sportsmanship and increased engagement while fighting over dollars. Do me this favor so that we don't have to go through an entire fall and winter of baseball talk. Long live the complete, unadulterated NBA, and death to a Wikipedia entry with 2011-2012 listed as a lockout season. That's a comparison or conversation I never want to have...

Dear Dan Gilbert

Caption: Am I f*cking up??

via The New York Times:

Cleveland fans, you can still hold your heads high: The curse has been lifted! Or so the Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert asserts, in an open letter to “Cleveland, all of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers supporters wherever you may be tonight.”

While some in the city and state that once hailed LeBron James as “king” burned his jerseys, Gilbert promised a much brighter future while simultaneously chastising and berating James for his “cowardly betrayal” of his hometown fans.

“But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called ‘curse’ on Cleveland, Ohio,” Gilbert wrote, noting that the “self-titled former ‘king” will be taking the bad luck and karma with him to South Beach. With the “curse” on its way to Miami, Cleveland is now primed to win a championship, in Gilbert’s eyes. In all capital letters, in the middle of the letter, Gilbert made a vow to Cavaliers fans everywhere:

“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE.”

Cleveland, Gilbert says, won’t just live on, it will prosper. Its children won’t have the image of a selfish role model draped over their arenas, and its front offices will be working harder than ever to win a championship against James.

As everyone is sitting there hating LeBron on the Heat, and raising their blood pressure over a deal that sealed basketball future, it would be easy to write about LeBron. However, the media firestorm, combined with the entire experience of the LeBronathon sickened me, so I'm not writing a part 2 to the previous letter. Instead we're going to take a look at you, Dan Gilbert. The owner that gave up the best player in the NBA.

I can't think of ANY time in the NBA when a team would allow, not only their best player to walk in free agency, but the best player in the NBA, and the world! Dan, you really dropped the ball on this one. The Cavaliers have had 7 (count em; 7) seasons to win an NBA Championship with LeBron James. That's 7 different seasons and 7 different chances to win. In NBA years, that's a long time. Dynasties are forged within 2-3 years. We're watching the end of one (sorry Lakers) and the beginning of a dynasty of endless epic proportions. The fact that you had well over twice that time to build a championship-caliber team around LeBron is sad. In those 7 years, I can't think of one season where James had a legitimate 2nd option on the team. Signing Larry Hughes was a joke and Mo Williams can't produce in the postseason. Not to mention, Antawn Jamison never can cut it in crunch time. Everytime your team won, it was because LeBron did something extraordinarily skilled or inhumanly athletic, not because someone else contributed consistently. Therefore, you can't ever be mad that he left to get some support (I think he went for broke for no reason, but that's another letter) around him. LeBron might have taken the easy way out, but can you blame him?

Your letter to the fans sounded like an angry ex-girlfriend who's ex-boyfriend upgraded significantly. It sounded like you were trying to find any conceivable way to speak ill of that person, regardless of whether you did right by them or not. What's worse is that you guaranteed a title before the Heat. You can't promise that!! What crystal ball were you looking into? Dan, you do realize that the your team, the Cavs have NOBODY on the squad. You guys won't be competing in the Eastern Conference for a long time. The Heat are a juggernaut, and they only have 4 players on their roster. The Celtics just re-upped with Jermaine O'Neal, the Bulls got better with Boozer and the Magic are still the Magic. Not to mention, the rest of the East is getting better. All that, combined with the fact that LeBron tried to smooth his move to Miami over with apologies, made you flip. That doesn't mean you should write angry letters to fans bashing the man. Seriously... Who tries to put a hex on a player leaving his team? Did you sit there at home and prick your LeBron James voodoo doll? Had you simply expressed remorse, or sounded optimistic (neither would truly make a difference, anyway), you wouldn't look like an ass now or have to start from square one with the Cavaliers and with Cleveland. Hope your wallets will be okay as Cleveland's economy rapidly declines and the Cavs don't make the playoffs for another 15 years...

First this, and now LeBron leaves?? Maybe Cleveland just isn't meant to win...

Dear Coach K

Yes, that really is what the paper printed...

Stop. Before you think this is a disparaging, hating-ass letter, think about this. Since 1980, you've coached Duke University into 4 National Championships, 11 Final Fours, 12 ACC Regular Season Championships and 12 ACC Championships. That basically means for the past 30 years, you've probably been the most dominant coach in college basketball (there, I said it). That's easy to hate on, especially if you're one of the squads, coaches or fans that have been getting the business from Duke. In fact, that's only the first reason that people dislike Duke Basketball and you, Coach K.

The second reason is that your players have bad NBA careers. I mean, for a program with as many accolades over the past 20+ years, shouldn't there be a few stars at the next level to show for dominance in college? Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer and Grant Hill are cool. But JJ Redick?? No. Chris Duhon?? Chill. Shelden Williams. Please. Dahntay Jones Ehh.. Sorry Coach K. Your recruiting is less based on who the best player is and who can fit into your system. No isolations. Just off-ball screens and long sets to free up shooters. That's why LeBron James and Shaun Livingston decided not to go to Duke. They realized they'd have no place at Duke. Smith, Scheyer & Singler could have okay NBA careers, but they don't seem like they've got much for teams.

Coach K, there were at least 5 times in the past month I thought your team should have lost to a team that was a little more talented and athletic. Lo and behold, Duke won not because of talent and athleticism, but because of superior coaching. I can't knock you for that, even if the Duke logo makes me sick. You won this championship with a tried and true formula. Why should you try and take it to the NBA and have some overpaid schmuck screw it up? I'm still hoping you don't win the NCAA next year. I can respect you though, especially when you say stuff like this:

We have great kids who go to school, who graduate. If we're going to be despised or hated by anybody because we go to school and we want to win, you know what, that's your problem. Then you have a problem, because we're going to go to school and we're going to try to win. You don't like it? Keep drawing pictures. Just keep drawing pictures. Try to do them a little bit better than that, though.

via USA Today