by Vasashi17 on Thu Oct 11, 2012 5:11 pm
I'm thinking Shaq was partially right in calling out Dwight for not being a back to the basket type player. Offensively, Dwight relies too much on his athleticism for put backs and the pick and roll.
God forbid, Nash goes down late in the year or *gulp* in the post season a la Malone in '04...then what? Dwight is going to be the face of this franchise and even though Kobe stood up for Dwight and refuted Shaq's critiques, a part of Kobe knew that Dwight needs to shoulder more of the responsibility offensively. Instead of relying on his athleticism to be more of a Euro pick & roll center as Shaq referred to him as, he needs to get dirty down low and make the opposing front court players pay. Defensively, Dwight has that demeanor, but offensively, the opposition really doesn't fear Dwight down there. Obviously Shaq had more weight on him and was a legit 7 footer compared to Dwight, but Dwight does have the strength to impose his will in the paint from time to time and the beauty of this team is that they don't have to go down low to Dwight everytime down the court....but when they do, he needs to really throw his weight around (of course when his back is ready and strong enough for it).
Hopefully some of the work Dwight gets with Cap can add to his offensive repertoire. One thing that was interesting from the NBA TV comments Shaq made, was that when prompted by Reggie if Dwight ever came to him to seek advice on how to play big and gully down low, Shaq said he would be open to teaching Dwight some of his tricks. But then again, I doubt that scenario will ever pan out and its unfortunate that ego is the sole reason behind it.
All in all, Kobe seems to be grooming Dwight for the takeover and if Dwight is ready to critique his game and commit to improving upon it, the franchise will be in great hands!
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