Im Still Ballin
05-31-2023, 03:03 PM
I made a post about this in another thread but I think it deserves its own.
It was commonly repeated - even in his prime - that Dwight was a subpar post-up player. That he lacked the touch and finesse from the pivot. Yes, he was mechanical and stiff, lacking fluidity; however, he was actually very effective down low. His low-post game was one of the fundamental components of Orlando's potent inside-out half-court offense.
Don't believe me? Let's look at some numbers from his 2010-2011 season. He scored 22.9 ppg and shot 59.7% FG when you remove seven three-point shot attempts. Four were heaves and three came late in the shot clock. It's his best-scoring season; he showed a tremendous combination of volume, efficiency, and career-best diversity.
Here are the Synergy numbers from that season:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dl3CslGUcAE2WK5?format=jpg&name=medium
The post-up constituted 58.7% of his offense. That would surprise a lot of people; perspective can warp as the years pass. A lot of people falsely think of him as a simple roll-and-cut big like Gobert or Capela.
He shot 50.3% FG, had a strong free-throw rate, and had a 13.9% turnover rate. Good for 0.928 PPP - about in line with 2010-2011 Orlando's 8th-ranked half-court offense. You can see the Synergy numbers for Orlando as a team below.
We also have to consider that these post-up numbers for Dwight don't include his passing and off-ball gravity. Not to mention how his post-up game segued into alley-oops and great positioning for cuts, dump-offs, and tip-ins/put-backs. Peep the incredibly high shooting percentage and PPP on cuts and offensive rebounds. Alley-oops seem to be included in "cuts."
To help you understand the value of his post-up game a little better, consider this: his overall half-court offense went from 1.005 PPP to 1.095 PPP with assists added. It's under the "Poss + Assists" section above. And that doesn't even include hockey assists. Orlando got a lot of assists swinging the ball to the weakside from Dwight's post-up plays.
Let's assume 58.7% of Dwight's 107 assists are from his post-up possessions. That gives us 62.81 assists from post-up plays. Then we multiply that by the average points per assist in the half-court (PPA) which is 2.578. That comes out to 161.92 total points.
946 post-up points + 161.92 post-up assist points = 1,107.92
1,107.92 points generated from Dwight Howard post-up plays / 1,019 total post-up plays = 1.087
That's it: 1.087 PPP. Pretty damn good. Elite half-court offense; top five most likely. Doesn't even include hockey assists and assists that don't count as hockey assists. Not even the off-ball gravity.
So what's the conclusion? He was a strong post-up player. Anyone saying otherwise isn't looking at the numbers. It wasn't pretty but it was effective.
- 50.3% FG
- Elite foul pressure
- Post-up game segued into lobs, cuts, dump-offs, and offensive rebound tip-ins/put-backs
- Collapsed defense with off-ball gravity and created open shots for teammates
- Most likely resulted in a top-five half-court offense
Here are the Synergy numbers for 2010-2011 Orlando:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dl3HIuAV4AEhvSn?format=jpg&name=large
And of course, he had limitations as a post-up player. The three main ones are:
- Mediocre passer
- Turnover prone
- Limited range
Yes, he wasn't as good as Shaq at posting up... but how many are? At the end of the day, the numbers supported him being a very good post-up player. Should he have taken more shots? Maybe. It's hard to say. You don't add possessions; you redistribute them. A star player scoring 2-3 ppg more doesn't mean his team will.
Some players are just passive on offense when they should be more assertive. Teammates and coaches were always telling Steve Nash that he needed to shoot more. Many years later, he admits it himself. Kblaze made a great post about Reggie Miller on this issue:
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?510010-What-would-prime-Reggie-Miller-average-today&p=14732776&viewfull=1#post14732776
30ppg wouldn’t shock me a bit if a coach could get him to stop giving up on plays that didn’t get him open like he mostly did by the mid 90s. Despite what 25 year olds tell me by reading efficiency stats this was totally normal in the 90s:
“Superstars are supposed to go get the basketball.”LARRY BIRDTo a man, the Pacers were talking about how hard they need to work to get Reggie Miller better shots tonight.
Larry Bird, though, feels differently. Millerholds his destiny – and the Pacers’ – in his hands. But Miller’s hands have not had the basketball nearly enough. So while, yes, more screens, better screens, would be nice, Miller needs to go get the ball and, in a nutshell, be selfish. Yeah, it’s nice to spring a teammate on a roll. But the teammates aren’t going to be who leads Indiana to victory. Miller can.
So far, though, Miller has attempted just five shots in the final four minutes of the three games combined. He has missed all five. Worse, with the game on the line twice in the final possession, Miller never touched the ball. Great players find a way, Bird insisted, issuing a not so subtle challenge to Miller for tonight’s Game 4 at the Garden.
“We’ve got to set better picks … [but] Reggie gave in a couple times where he was defended well and he sought of gave in to it and let the ball swing to the other side of the court. With two minutes to go, I was sitting there wondering, ‘When is he going to go and get the ball in his hands?'” Bird related. “And that’s where we want it: in his hands because we know they’re not going to foul him and we know he can make that play for us. It just didn’t happen.”.
People openly wondered why Reggie was t doing anything. The number of big plays that would be Dale Davis or Mark Jackson trying to score one on one when they weren’t scorers would shock some of you.
Reggie would have a screen not clear him and just stand there and watch worse players lose them games instead of going to get the ball. And 30 years later I have people who were 4 at the time tell me he always took over.
If you could get Reggie to play the way his modern fans think he did he might contend for a scoring title with these off ball movement rules. He was legit as good as Steph off the ball if not better because he had more willingness to flash open and get a quick midrange or fadeaway that Steph usually won’t take. That guy would be open all day every day. He obviously can’t do it with the in his hands like Steph but he had more willingness to take what’s there not just threes and these days he’d find openings all over.
Get him to play like he’s the man all the time he’d be doing 30. But he probably wouldn’t.
Just because they wouldn't, doesn't mean they couldn't. We're measuring ability here, after all.
This video is a good representation of how Dwight's post-up game looked at its best. Notice how he rarely makes a shot further than five feet. How his strength and athleticism allow him to get high-percentage looks close to the basket. Whether that was establishing deep position, backing down a guy, or facing up and blowing by him. He liked to use running hooks, baby hooks, and powerful drop steps.
It wasn't pretty; people wouldn't call it skilled, but it was effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-s9vfrpOM0
It was commonly repeated - even in his prime - that Dwight was a subpar post-up player. That he lacked the touch and finesse from the pivot. Yes, he was mechanical and stiff, lacking fluidity; however, he was actually very effective down low. His low-post game was one of the fundamental components of Orlando's potent inside-out half-court offense.
Don't believe me? Let's look at some numbers from his 2010-2011 season. He scored 22.9 ppg and shot 59.7% FG when you remove seven three-point shot attempts. Four were heaves and three came late in the shot clock. It's his best-scoring season; he showed a tremendous combination of volume, efficiency, and career-best diversity.
Here are the Synergy numbers from that season:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dl3CslGUcAE2WK5?format=jpg&name=medium
The post-up constituted 58.7% of his offense. That would surprise a lot of people; perspective can warp as the years pass. A lot of people falsely think of him as a simple roll-and-cut big like Gobert or Capela.
He shot 50.3% FG, had a strong free-throw rate, and had a 13.9% turnover rate. Good for 0.928 PPP - about in line with 2010-2011 Orlando's 8th-ranked half-court offense. You can see the Synergy numbers for Orlando as a team below.
We also have to consider that these post-up numbers for Dwight don't include his passing and off-ball gravity. Not to mention how his post-up game segued into alley-oops and great positioning for cuts, dump-offs, and tip-ins/put-backs. Peep the incredibly high shooting percentage and PPP on cuts and offensive rebounds. Alley-oops seem to be included in "cuts."
To help you understand the value of his post-up game a little better, consider this: his overall half-court offense went from 1.005 PPP to 1.095 PPP with assists added. It's under the "Poss + Assists" section above. And that doesn't even include hockey assists. Orlando got a lot of assists swinging the ball to the weakside from Dwight's post-up plays.
Let's assume 58.7% of Dwight's 107 assists are from his post-up possessions. That gives us 62.81 assists from post-up plays. Then we multiply that by the average points per assist in the half-court (PPA) which is 2.578. That comes out to 161.92 total points.
946 post-up points + 161.92 post-up assist points = 1,107.92
1,107.92 points generated from Dwight Howard post-up plays / 1,019 total post-up plays = 1.087
That's it: 1.087 PPP. Pretty damn good. Elite half-court offense; top five most likely. Doesn't even include hockey assists and assists that don't count as hockey assists. Not even the off-ball gravity.
So what's the conclusion? He was a strong post-up player. Anyone saying otherwise isn't looking at the numbers. It wasn't pretty but it was effective.
- 50.3% FG
- Elite foul pressure
- Post-up game segued into lobs, cuts, dump-offs, and offensive rebound tip-ins/put-backs
- Collapsed defense with off-ball gravity and created open shots for teammates
- Most likely resulted in a top-five half-court offense
Here are the Synergy numbers for 2010-2011 Orlando:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dl3HIuAV4AEhvSn?format=jpg&name=large
And of course, he had limitations as a post-up player. The three main ones are:
- Mediocre passer
- Turnover prone
- Limited range
Yes, he wasn't as good as Shaq at posting up... but how many are? At the end of the day, the numbers supported him being a very good post-up player. Should he have taken more shots? Maybe. It's hard to say. You don't add possessions; you redistribute them. A star player scoring 2-3 ppg more doesn't mean his team will.
Some players are just passive on offense when they should be more assertive. Teammates and coaches were always telling Steve Nash that he needed to shoot more. Many years later, he admits it himself. Kblaze made a great post about Reggie Miller on this issue:
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?510010-What-would-prime-Reggie-Miller-average-today&p=14732776&viewfull=1#post14732776
30ppg wouldn’t shock me a bit if a coach could get him to stop giving up on plays that didn’t get him open like he mostly did by the mid 90s. Despite what 25 year olds tell me by reading efficiency stats this was totally normal in the 90s:
“Superstars are supposed to go get the basketball.”LARRY BIRDTo a man, the Pacers were talking about how hard they need to work to get Reggie Miller better shots tonight.
Larry Bird, though, feels differently. Millerholds his destiny – and the Pacers’ – in his hands. But Miller’s hands have not had the basketball nearly enough. So while, yes, more screens, better screens, would be nice, Miller needs to go get the ball and, in a nutshell, be selfish. Yeah, it’s nice to spring a teammate on a roll. But the teammates aren’t going to be who leads Indiana to victory. Miller can.
So far, though, Miller has attempted just five shots in the final four minutes of the three games combined. He has missed all five. Worse, with the game on the line twice in the final possession, Miller never touched the ball. Great players find a way, Bird insisted, issuing a not so subtle challenge to Miller for tonight’s Game 4 at the Garden.
“We’ve got to set better picks … [but] Reggie gave in a couple times where he was defended well and he sought of gave in to it and let the ball swing to the other side of the court. With two minutes to go, I was sitting there wondering, ‘When is he going to go and get the ball in his hands?'” Bird related. “And that’s where we want it: in his hands because we know they’re not going to foul him and we know he can make that play for us. It just didn’t happen.”.
People openly wondered why Reggie was t doing anything. The number of big plays that would be Dale Davis or Mark Jackson trying to score one on one when they weren’t scorers would shock some of you.
Reggie would have a screen not clear him and just stand there and watch worse players lose them games instead of going to get the ball. And 30 years later I have people who were 4 at the time tell me he always took over.
If you could get Reggie to play the way his modern fans think he did he might contend for a scoring title with these off ball movement rules. He was legit as good as Steph off the ball if not better because he had more willingness to flash open and get a quick midrange or fadeaway that Steph usually won’t take. That guy would be open all day every day. He obviously can’t do it with the in his hands like Steph but he had more willingness to take what’s there not just threes and these days he’d find openings all over.
Get him to play like he’s the man all the time he’d be doing 30. But he probably wouldn’t.
Just because they wouldn't, doesn't mean they couldn't. We're measuring ability here, after all.
This video is a good representation of how Dwight's post-up game looked at its best. Notice how he rarely makes a shot further than five feet. How his strength and athleticism allow him to get high-percentage looks close to the basket. Whether that was establishing deep position, backing down a guy, or facing up and blowing by him. He liked to use running hooks, baby hooks, and powerful drop steps.
It wasn't pretty; people wouldn't call it skilled, but it was effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-s9vfrpOM0