Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack of Arcades
Oh, OK, I guess I'm ******ed. I still think Howard has a good shot to never be as good as he was last year and given his body type he might not last as long as guys taken earlier in the draft.
I disagree with this for several reasons...
In general, superstars who have come straight out of high school have continued to improve thier games into their mid twenties and have not peaked at 22-23. This is true of Kobe, KG, Jermaine O'neil, Lebron etc... I actually can't think of someone who came out of high school, had a big impact, and peaked around age 22. Who am I looking over?
As far as Dwight individually, obviously his scoring has improved each year he has been in the league, from 12.0, 15.8, 17.6, to this year where he averaged 20.7. He probably won't average 14 boards per game for his career, but he'll probably be the best or second best rebounder in the NBA for some time to come. His field goal shooting has improved from great to basically unheard of... while there is not room for him to improve his shooting % he will still continue to develope as an offensive player. If he can create more shots for himself by improving his mid range game a bit and add a few tricks in the post, he would be more valuable taking an extra 5 shots a game if that meant dropping his FG% into the low fifties. He likley will not have the weight issues that Shaq has, and he is less of a monster than Yao and far more athletic, so I really think he should be less injury prone at similar ages compared to those guys. I just don't think any of the information out there supports this being the best season of Dwight Howards career...