Dwight Discussion: Dwightmare on Figueroa St. Part Boo

Looks like his steeping back a few inches have worked at the FT line

Outside of his idiotic goaltend, he played a really good game. I mean damn how can put up 16/18 with 4 blocked shots and still get a cold shoulder from the fans?...

I'd like to see him get more freaking shots though. Jodie and Metta don't need 22 three pointers between them.

^^Getting a cold shoulder from the fans seems to be a plague on our centers over the last few years.....

True, but at least when Drew gave us 15+ boards someone said "hey at least he gave us 15+ boards tonight".

You sure about that.....

Howard played a decent yet uninspired game IMO last night..... but so did most of the team outside of MWP and Morris (of all people!).

Yeah I am sure. People's biggest problem with Bynum was his intensity on defense and on the glass. Whenever he gave us 4 blocks and 15 rebounds people were happy even if he only had 12 points.

Well here's our Center giving us 16/18 with 4 blocks and people are saying it was an alright performance or they wish he'd done this or that differently. I mean, give the guy credit. Who else in the league can give that kind of numbers and people are still expecting more?

Generally, I like what Dwight does. I think the team as a whole could play better D, but still... Dwight produces on a consistent basis. He scores, rebounds, blocks shots. All after 8 months of not playing basketball. I definitely give him credit for his play this season. 18/12/2 with almost 3 blocks per game? That's really, really good. Pretty much his career average numbers; and if he's not even @ 100% yet... Wow, that's actually excellent for a modern NBA center.

Great to see him improving his free throwing. That's been a huge issue with him and I'm glad to see it getting better. I don't ever expect him to a 70% free thrower. But mid 40% was just unacceptable. If he can clean it up and get back to somewhere near 60% I'd be content.

therealdeal wrote:True, but at least when Drew gave us 15+ boards someone said "hey at least he gave us 15+ boards tonight".

Bynum averaged 12 boards a game last season so he had quite a few 15+ boards nights. I don't recall people saying that too much.

I thought Dwight played a good game last night and I'd hardly call it "uninspired". He did his job.

But I would like to see him go "above and beyond" what he usually does when the game is going south. Don't just settle for "well I've done my job" when the team is struggling. When a team wins because players like Morris and Meeks are going "above and beyond" their expectations, it doesn't sit too well with me. It's players like Dwight and Pau that should be doing that.

Bynum had 15 games of 15 or more rebounds. He had 21 games of less than 10.

Howard so far this season has 9 games of 15+ rebounds and 10 games of less than 10. He had a tough 4 game stretch there.

Bynum's averages rose greatly because of a few truly great games, but the point is that Howard is doing more of what we wanted from Bynum. He's not scoring as much, but he's rebound and defending better and more consistently. That's not a shot at Bynum, he's just a different player than Howard. Howard is the better fit.

But in the hoopla of this season we've forgotten what we wanted in the first place is what we've got now and we're looking a gift horse in the mouth. Why have we all forgotten that Howard is doing a great job and he's still not fully healthy yet?

therealdeal wrote:Bynum had 15 games of 15 or more rebounds. He had 21 games of less than 10.

Howard so far this season has 9 games of 15+ rebounds and 10 games of less than 10. He had a tough 4 game stretch there.

Bynum's averages rose greatly because of a few truly great games, but the point is that Howard is doing more of what we wanted from Bynum. He's not scoring as much, but he's rebound and defending better and more consistently. That's not a shot at Bynum, he's just a different player than Howard. Howard is the better fit.

But in the hoopla of this season we've forgotten what we wanted in the first place is what we've got now and we're looking a gift horse in the mouth. Why have we all forgotten that Howard is doing a great job and he's still not fully healthy yet?

oh come on you're using common sense. Cant do that.

The Rock wrote:

therealdeal wrote:Bynum had 15 games of 15 or more rebounds. He had 21 games of less than 10.

Howard so far this season has 9 games of 15+ rebounds and 10 games of less than 10. He had a tough 4 game stretch there.

Bynum's averages rose greatly because of a few truly great games, but the point is that Howard is doing more of what we wanted from Bynum. He's not scoring as much, but he's rebound and defending better and more consistently. That's not a shot at Bynum, he's just a different player than Howard. Howard is the better fit.

But in the hoopla of this season we've forgotten what we wanted in the first place is what we've got now and we're looking a gift horse in the mouth. Why have we all forgotten that Howard is doing a great job and he's still not fully healthy yet?

oh come on you're using common sense. Cant do that.

+1, good post realdeal. Now that we've heard from Dwight himself that he feels like he's not 100%, I think a couple of his earlier subpar games make way more sense. It is great to have him playing and he brings a lot to the table. My biggest beef with him was the free throws and he's worked on that, and it's clearly paying off lately. His rebounding and D are what we desperately needed. He's nowhere near as active as I've seen him in the past but that's clearly an effect of the back injury and his recovery. We won't be able to assess what his ceiling is for some time. But it's awesome to have him on the team and I'm looking forward to him getting even better.

Something I'd like to see is his minutes scaled back just a little bit now that Gasol is back and healthy. That way he's not quite as burned out. I think he just gets tired easily still and with this offense being what it is, he'll get tired pretty quickly.

I think now that Gasol is back and really in a way to try to incorporate him more, we ought to give some of Howard's minutes to Pau and allow Howard to catch up with his conditioning in a less stressful manner.

therealdeal wrote:Bynum had 15 games of 15 or more rebounds. He had 21 games of less than 10.

Howard so far this season has 9 games of 15+ rebounds and 10 games of less than 10. He had a tough 4 game stretch there.

Bynum's averages rose greatly because of a few truly great games, but the point is that Howard is doing more of what we wanted from Bynum. He's not scoring as much, but he's rebound and defending better and more consistently. That's not a shot at Bynum, he's just a different player than Howard. Howard is the better fit.

But in the hoopla of this season we've forgotten what we wanted in the first place is what we've got now and we're looking a gift horse in the mouth. Why have we all forgotten that Howard is doing a great job and he's still not fully healthy yet?

1) Which means he'll probably have more than 21 games with less than 10 by the time the season is over. Especially with Pau back in the fold. Many of his sub 10 games came with Pau on the floor.

2) He should. We're actually funneling the ball to him and using him as a shotblocker. Which we didn't do with Bynum last season, yet Bynum still managed to acquire 1.9 blocks and 12 rpg despite the awful scheme. It's easier for bigs to rebound and block shots when they are in the paint instead of chasing guards at the 3pt line.

And at that rate he'll far exceed the same rate for Bynum's 15+ rebounding games... I'm not sure what the argument here is anymore. Dwight is a better rebounder than Bynum because that's something he prides himself in. We've seen Bynum do that on occassion (30 rebound game against San Antonio), but he doesn't have the same instincts that Howard has for the ball. Two different guys.

And we actually did funnel guys in. Or we tried at least. Our defense was worse on the perimeter. The scheme is not all that different actually. The reason New York was able to keep us from winning that game was because we kept having Howard swith to the guard on the perimeter. Howard is just a better help defender/shot blocker than Bynum. That's not an insult, just the truth.

Considering Bynum is arguably the slowest player in the league, I highly doubt he chased guards at the 3 point line. 99% of the time guards ran circles around him even before he reaches the FT line.

therealdeal wrote:And at that rate he'll far exceed the same rate for Bynum's 15+ rebounding games... I'm not sure what the argument here is anymore. Dwight is a better rebounder than Bynum because that's something he prides himself in. We've seen Bynum do that on occassion (30 rebound game against San Antonio), but he doesn't have the same instincts that Howard has for the ball. Two different guys.

And we actually did funnel guys in. Or we tried at least. Our defense was worse on the perimeter. The scheme is not all that different actually. The reason New York was able to keep us from winning that game was because we kept having Howard swith to the guard on the perimeter. Howard is just a better help defender/shot blocker than Bynum. That's not an insult, just the truth.

1) He should exceed Bynum's 15+ games. He's living in the paint.

2) No we didn't. Mike Brown preached "show high! show high!" at the beginning of the season and to the reporters in interviews. We eventually went to "show low" which is a modified version of show high, but still not a funneling scheme. Either way it was Bynum going out to hedge rather than having the man funneled to him.

It's the truth when it comes to hedging, which D12 is better at. Not true when it comes to paint protection. Last season, Bynum was ranked #1 when it came to stopping the driving guard on a P&R. The problem was recovery. Not just Bynum recovering, bu the help man recovering too. The limited time that we did use a funneling scheme with Bynum (albeit a rather hacky one drawn up by Chuck Person, not the one we use now that's more defined and probably drawn up by Steve Clifford) in 2011 during that 17-1 stretch, Bynum was averaging 2.5 blocks per game and 11.9 rpg.

KB24 wrote:Considering Bynum is arguably the slowest player in the league, I highly doubt he chased guards at the 3 point line. 99% of the time guards ran circles around him even before he reaches the FT line.

Bynum was rated at #1 at stopping the penetrating guard on a P&R last season.

The real problem was that the bigs were available for offensive putbacks, easy dunks, or the help D was scrambled all over leaving shooters open.

I'm not doing this again...

Rooscooter wrote:You sure about that.....

Howard played a decent yet uninspired game IMO last night..... but so did most of the team outside of MWP and Morris (of all people!).

That's because Bynum can't pull down 15 rebounds playing uninspired. When he had games like that the effort was usually visible.. Dwight coasts to those numbers.

If Dwight can "coast" to get 18 rebounds, then why did he have 6 rebound, 7 rebound and 8 rebound games this season?

revgen wrote:If Dwight can "coast" to get 18 rebounds, then why did he have 6 rebound, 7 rebound and 8 rebound games this season?

He can, doesn't mean he always does.. You telling me you haven't seen Dwight put up numbers while seemingly not playing hard? I know I have.

Dwight is a monster, and is definitely getting better in all areas. His turnovers, and free throws. Post game is still a little iffy. But we're only beginning to the dominance that dwight has, just wait 'till nash gets into the flow of things. Thus far we've only truly seen about 75% of his talents. Now look for nash to unveil the dominance of his mobility.

you can tell Dwight isn't there yet. mostly can tell with his dunks and his post work. he doesn't have the explosiveness in his post moves that really let him hang in the air and get the shot off on and 1's. he's get there but it'll take a bit. he's looking good though but you can tell

revgen wrote:If Dwight can "coast" to get 18 rebounds, then why did he have 6 rebound, 7 rebound and 8 rebound games this season?

Hmm, coming off 8 months of sitting around doing nothing and major back surgery may have played a factor