To many, Dwight Howard is basketball’s Judas, the type of character that will smile with you in public and plot your demise in the darkness of privacy. The list of his errs and moral failings are endless. Divisive opinions on him are etched in stone. This makes his inability to accept his role as the antagonist maddening.
The Rockets need Dwight Howard to get angry
The Rockets’ superstar is at his best when he doesn’t care what people think of him.
The desire to be the hero of the story is understandable on some level. Everything has to be rationalized in your favor, or else you may see reality as it really is: A broken spectacle where the role of villain and hero are interchangeable depending on context. That’s why Howard still wears the smile as if he’s actually Superman descending to the adoring public after rescuing the passengers of a malfunctioning plane.
Any sensible person sees through this facade. It’s infuriating to see Howard complain and whine to the referees when he has the shoulders of Atlas.
Yet, all of that is frustrating only because he is so dominant when he does focus on his game more than outside circumstances. The lesson of the playoffs is that when Howard embraces being the villain, the Rockets thrive.
Just ask the Clippers. His performance in the final three games of that series was a virtual “Screw you” to all the criticism that was laid at his doorstep. Emotionally immature? Lacking the mental fortitude required to take his team to the next level? Unable to dominate as his talent suggests? More concerned about having fun than basketball? Screw you to all of that.
Rockets vs. Warriors
He can be all of these things, yet he’s also not. When Howard is being ejected for throwing an elbow at the face of Matt Barnes -- a good deed if there ever was one -- or being riled up enough to address a heckling fan, it all seems to come from a place of frustration of oneself. It’s not necessarily that he’s emotionally weak. It’s more that he knows how good he is, but can’t understand why things aren’t going right, so he lashes out or responds to the criticism of fans. Anyone who’s ever lived and done anything well will tell you that these outbursts aren’t rare.
Even as the Rockets fell into a 3-1 hole against the Clippers, we can’t deny that Howard was one of the few Rockets players giving effort. James Harden was disappearing into his own beard and daydreams of nightclubs. The bench players were being outplayed by a Clippers reserve unit composed by MacGyver. The whole Moneyball concept was falling in the face of real and utter talent as a whole. But there was Howard, trying to urge his team forward, putting up double-doubles against two of the best big men in the game.
In a critical and final game against the Clippers, he focused on himself and it paid huge dividends. He managed 16 points and 15 rebounds in a contest where the Rockets never trailed. They attacked the Clippers early and often and Howard not only played his role as the defensive deterrent and offensive safety blanket to perfection, he also turned facilitator on more than one occasion.
In the early minutes of the first quarter, when Houston was flying down the court after every Clippers miss, Howard turned into a point center. In one instance, he rebounded the ball and immediately raced past defenders in an effort to turn the situation into a two-against-one with Josh Smith as his Jimmy Olsen. When he got to the rim, he dumped the ball off for Smith to get the easy finish. It was not the only time he made a play like this. Several times, he received the ball in the high post, turned and threw it up for Smith to dunk in one graceful, conditioned movement.
This illustrates how rare a player like Howard really is. He has the capacity to score as much as Blake Griffin, yet also possesses the formidable aura on the defensive end that turns the paint into a no-fly zone for guards and forwards alike. DeAndre Jordan may be more athletic and Griffin may be more talented, but Howard is a combination of the best of both parts.
The Rockets improbably beat the Clippers and made history on their way to the Western Conference Finals. They will now face a Golden State team that has no mercy for anything breathing, and Howard will be matched up against another defensive lynchpin in either Andrew Bogut or Draymond Green. He’s shown that he has the ability to compete with the best of them, but the Rockets will need Villain Dwight for this battle.
The trick is getting him to shed the mask and embrace his own identity.
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