"Enough is Enough"

[Emory889 353]

Not sure about this, in the youtube clip I remember Hakeem saying "that's your bread and butter" when he did the hook shot under the basket. And that same hook shot has been Dwight's strongest weapon this season.

 

It was his strongest weapon last season as well.

[Justin Jaudon 221]

I think looking at Dwight's career, from start to finish, his offensive improvement since his first couple of seasons has been astonishing. Coming into that first pick, I honestly thought Orlando should take Emeka Okafor. I had seen too many players like Howard not pan out. He was a 6-10, 240 lb power forward out of high school who said his favorite players were KG and David Robinson. Sounded a lot like Kwame Brown or Tyson Chandler to me; he didn't have the quickness or the outside shot that KG did, but everyone said he was really athletic and talented. I thought Okafor would give us a polished big man who would immediately be one of the best post defenders in the game. For Howard's first couple seasons I thought I had been right. Okafor is a great low post defender, and an underused scorer; Howard just looked like a really good rebounder who was way too aggressive on D.

 

Then all of a sudden, Howard started fighting for post position on offense, and he learned how to control his aggression (to a degree) on D. His offense was so improved. If he got position down low, you had to foul him. He had gained like 20 pounds and was just unstoppable underneath. But then people realized that his size took away his free throw shooting (guy shot closer to 70 % as a rookie), and they just fouled him when he got underneath. I was excited though, because I thought if we could get a real scorer he would be hard to beat as a cleanup guy and a solid second option. And I thought Rashard Lewis would be that guy. But Howard just kept improving and improving. He developed a solid back-to-the-basket game, became a better passer (albeit not a great one), and could even face up and give that little spin move to get to the rim.

 

Now with the added threat of a jump shot and renewed offensive aggression, the guy is one of the most efficient offensive options in the league. All that is hard work on his part. A lot of guys have had access to great centers for mentor-ship over the years, but few have shown the dedication and commitment to get better as Howard has. So give some credit to the teachers, but the student has to do all the real work of learning how to change his game and spend the time to actually put that knowledge into practice.