Dwight Howard is the most dominant center of this generation. With rare exception, he has been able to physically dominate just about everyone who attempts to guard him or take him on. And Orlando’s last dominant big man, Shaquille O’Neal, says he knows why.
“If Dwight doesn’t win two or three championships, I’m going to be disappointed. He doesn’t have nobody. When I came in the league, I had to go through Alonzo Mourning, Arvydas Sabonis, Kevin Duckworth, Rik Smits,” O’Neal said in an interview with the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
[…] “But my thing is if you want to call yourself me (Superman), then you’ve got big shoes to fill. I’m not in the Superman this, and Superman that. He won a dunk contest with a cape. If you want to be called Superman because of that, it’s fine with me. I’m Superman for other reasons,” he said.
“I don’t envy him; he’s a great young player. But I’ve never seen him dog another center out. I tried to dog centers out. I went at David Robinson.”
Kevin Duckworth? Anyway…
Shaq is clearly not a fan of all the hype surrounding Dwight. And despite the douchey manner in which he makes his point, the point is valid.
Let’s look at Shaq’s last season in Orlando (1995-96). The other centers in the league were guys like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon. Last year, Dwight had to face off against guys like Brook Lopez, Andrew Bogut, Marc Gasol, Tyson Chandler, and Andrew Bynum. A couple of those guys are alright, but I think its safe to say Shaq’s point is made. Centers today can’t hold a candle to the centers of Shaq’s prime.
And that leads us down the obvious road, and one that Orlando fans are a little sick of seeing: is Orlando squandering its chance to win it all with a dominant center?
This is normally where one would rail on Orlando’s offensive approach of chucking up threes like mad. The team with the most dominant big man in the game and no real competition to stop him took a league leading 25.6 threes per game last season. Yet overall, Orlando was in a tie for 26th with 78.2 field goal attempts per game. Meanwhile, Dwight was 45th… I’ll say that again… 45TH in the league in shot attempts with 13.4 per game. Chris Bosh, the clear third option on a team with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James had a slightly higher average. Yes, the numbers are a little skewed by the hack-a-Dwight approach (he took a league high 11.7 FT per game) but the point stands. Hakeem was right when he said Orlando needs more Dwight.
Fine, I’ll stop. Because you’ve heard it all before. Shaq said what he said and he has a point. And Orlando has tried to address some of its shortcomings with a trade that just didn’t work out. And just having a dominant center in today’s game isn’t enough because you need more. And the fact is that centers need to wait to get the ball, which puts them at the whims of the wings. The Magic have employed a lot of shooters who want to do what they do.
But Dwight’s so far and away the best center in this game. Orlando’s missing a big opportunity.
