Lakers tired of Dwight Howard?

[TampaGatorFan]

Originally Posted by keefer

Right on Zo. Biggest POS in sports IMO. Dude is narcissistic. It's all about HIMSELF. I remember him crying about fan support, crying about no talent around him, crying about Van Gundy and crying about the Magic organization. Punk ass bitch indeed. Can't stand the fake SOB.

Well, he fits right in with the Lakers, then, doesn't he?

[Allanon]

Originally Posted by DuPontGator

I think he could take you.

Not from the free throw line.

[CAGator93]

who would have guessed that the move to the Lakers would have made him less of a star and less marketable.

[corpgator]

He isn't in healthy yet and did played a lot of last season with a herniated disc in his back. And there's nothing overrated about his game. When he's healthy, he's the best defender in the league and a team can build a contender around him like Orlando showed playing inside out.

He didn't do himself any favors with the way he left Orlando, but he isn't really being utilized in LA.

[Ahab]

I know this dumbfounding Lakers season is juggling about 39 different inexplicable subplots, but for me, Howard's decline from "third-best player in basketball" to "borderline All-Star" (which is what you called him in Tuesday's All-Star ballot column, and by the way, I totally agree) has been the single most staggering subplot. We're now 13 weeks into the 2012-13 season and Howard doesn't look any more or less mobile/spry/athletic/bouncy than he did on Halloween. He doesn't have the same hops. He's laboring. I watched him in person on Thursday night — he moves just as stiffly as Emeka Okafor does. He plays like a guy with a bad back. It hasn't gotten better. The fact that he's putting up solid numbers is kind of amazing.

Lowe: I think you're a little harsh on Dwight, considering it might take better than league-average individual defense to drag this roster to league-average defense, if that makes sense.

Simmons: You're right. Still, remember last summer when we were assuming Howard would fix whatever problems they had? Everyone thought he'd revert to being 2009-2010-2011 Howard … eventually. And that just hasn't happened. There is no evidence that 2009-2010-2011 Howard is coming back. None.

Lowe: I've already written that on some nights, he looks more like Carlos Boozer (sorry, Booz!) than Howard's old self — he's slower on his feet, not as good at positioning himself to cut off pocket passes, and often swiping with his arms instead of sliding his feet to get into proper position. Shoot, Marco Belinelli turned the corner on him in crunch time Monday night in Chicago. His back-line help defense has been slower than usual, and he and Pau Gasol just haven't nailed down any defensive chemistry. He's also been a part of L.A.'s god-awful transition defense — as has Kobe (always gambling for steals in that split second of offense-to-defense chaos after a turnover) and everyone else. He's just slow, basically.

Simmons: Hold on, we have to wait for the Orlando Magic fans to stop high-fiving.

Lowe: By the way: I (fake) voted Howard MVP in 2011 and thought he was the second-best player in the league after that season. Kevin Durant would have passed him by now regardless, but Howard was that good.

Simmons: Yessir. After the 2011 season ended, you could safely say three players guaranteed you 46-plus wins if you gave them 11 average teammates — LeBron, Howard and Durant. Now? It's a two-man list. And I don't think people realize how young Howard is … he just turned 27 years old. He's two months older than Rajon Rondo! For everyone saying, "Well, he just has to play himself back into shape," um … how do we know for sure? Maybe he's never going to be the same. I remember when Larry Johnson was battling a herniated disk in the mid-'90s, he had the surgery and everyone said, "He'll be fine, he'll be the old LJ soon." Never happened. He lost his explosiveness, stopped being the same rebounder, and reinvented himself as an outside shooter. Check this out …

Larry Johnson, age 24: 40.5 MPG, 22.1 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 4.3 APG, 53% FG, 18.9 PER
Larry Johnson, age 29: 34.4 MPG, 12.8 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 2.3 APG, 51% FG, 15.8 PER
Larry Johnson, age 30: 33.4 MPG, 12.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 2.4 APG, 46% FG, 14.6 PER

So for anyone saying, "Howard just needs to play himself back into shape," what evidence do we have that it will happen?

Lowe: It's tough to find equivalency between injuries, only because each case is specific to each player's injury, age, recovery tendencies, genetics, etc. Players have managed back issues before — including Steve Nash for several years in his mid-30s and beyond — and Howard is still pretty young. But I suppose it's possible he never regains 100 percent of his peak. Hard to know either way.

Simmons: The red flag for me: Howard isn't a physically overpowering presence like, say, Shaq was. His athleticism was what made him overpowering, no different than LeBron, Russell Westbrook or even Serge Ibaka (on some nights, anyway). Athletically, Dwight was on another planet. He could jump three times before everyone else jumped twice. He lived above the rim — you literally couldn't keep him away from it. Now you can.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8872264/lakers

[mfpardnor2]

Originally Posted by DuPontGator

He is superman...

Los Angeles must be made of Kryptonite