Dwight Stepping Up When It Comes To Recruiting Players
Dwight Howard is the best Center in basketball but has plenty of room for improvement. According to just about every NBA analyst, there are several things he needs to do in order to make this iprovement.
1. Dwight Howard needs a go to post move.
2. Dwight Howard needs to step up and become a better, more vocal leader on the court.
3. Dwight Howard needs to improve his free throw shooting.
4. Dwight Howard needs to become a leader off of the floor and recruit other players to come play for Orlando like superstars Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Paul Piece do for their teams.
I tend to agree with all four of these points. Most critics cite the lack of a mid range jumper as one of Dwight’s biggest weaknesses, but that will be a much harder attribute to attain then these attributes would. I’ll eventually touch on all of these subjects, but for now let’s just focus on one of them. We won’t see how much Dwight has improved on the first three until the season begins, but we already know he is working hard on #4.
We should have known that Dwight Howard did some work after the Magic acquired Rashard Lewis in a sign and trade during the 2007 offseason. Lewis has credited the young Center as the main reason that he chose Orlando over several other teams. Lewis was widely considered the top Unrestricted Free Agent on the market in 2007. The Associated Press gave their thoughts as to why Lewis chose Orlando back in 2007.
"That’s no surprise, considering he’d just received a six-year contract worth more than $110 million with the Magic and an opportunity he coveted to play with All-Star center Dwight Howard on a team that Lewis believes could quickly become a major factor in the Eastern Conference."
He made a good pitch to Rashard, but Dwight Howard’s most influential recruiting pitch of his young career came just a few weeks ago when he lured Free Agent Forward Matt Barnes to Orlando from the Phoenix Suns. Fellow Eastern Conference rivals, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks, were also hard after Barnes. Dwight Howard and Matt Barnes share the same agent – Aaron Goodwin – and this allowed Howard to stay in constant contact with Barnes while he was making his decision. Howard supposedly sent Barnes several text messages.
"“He has agreed to a two-year deal, and I believe that Dwight’s recruitment of him truly sealed the deal,” Aaron Goodwin, the agent for both players, wrote in a text message to the Sentinel early Tuesday morning."
This is exactly what the Magic need Howard to do. Through his on the court play, his dunk contest participation, his fun-loving attitude and now his trip to the NBA Finals, Dwight Howard has become one of the most popular players in the league – among both fans and players. He even led the league in All Star votes this season. He needs to use his personality and his game to seal the deal on free agents like Barnes who were on the fence. Dwight deserves a lot of credit for a signing that made the Magic probably the deepest team in all of basketball.
The idea of Brandon Bass fitting into the Orlando offense next to Dwight was very appealing to both Bass and the Magic, so once again you can point to Dwight as one of the main reasons the Magic were able to snag a Free Agent ($18 million over 4 years probably didn’t hurt Orlando’s chances either). Bass knew that he would be a perfect complement to Dwight Howard due to his mid range jumper and finishing ability around the basket. Dwight will create many open looks for Bass and all he will be asked to do is finish.
Dwight Howard is the reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year, he is a first team All NBA Center and has lead his team to their second Eastern Conference Championship and their first ever win in an NBA Finals series. He’s an All Star on the court and is now becoming one off of the court, convincing free agent to join him in his quest for NBA Championship. He has many areas that he needs to improve on and luckily for the Magic, he is already stepping up his game off of the court.
Make sure to check out HowardtheDunk tomorrow when the NBA will officially release the 2009-10 Regular Season Schedule.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger.Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily. Check out his ACC Football preview here.)