Anyone wishing we got Howard?

[celticsclay]

At one point we were actually considered the favorite to sign him. It is unclear if it would have been possible to have both him and Horford, but assuming it was since we were still going after Durant, how good would we look with Howard starting and Amir coming off the bench? He is averaging 15 points and 12 rebounds on 57% shooting to go along with 2.5 blocks.

Hey just put up 31 points on the Lakers. I am not sure how many people thought he still had a lot of 30 point games in him.

We were never getting Howard and Horford.  Howard's arrival in Atlanta is one reason we got Horford at all.

I prefer Horford because I think his game fits in better with how the Celtics play.  But Howard certainly looks revitalized, and if things had worked out differently such that Dwight came here and Al stayed in Atlanta, I certainly wouldn't regret his signing.

Atlanta is now a pretty interesting team. If they somehow could have ever had Howard, Horford and Milsap that would be a fascinating frontcourt to see. I think that ultimately Howard got there a little too late. Korver is really on the downside of his career and not the same player he was a few years ago. They also really benefited from having both Teague and Schroeder. I wish that Atlanta team would have had a better run a few years ago after they won 60 some games. If memory serves correct they were really banged up. It would have been at least a more competitive series with Cleveland.

Korver got hurt in the series and played just 2 games, but they were otherwise generally healthy.  Cleveland on the other hand didn't have Love at all and Irving coming back from an injury played in only the last 2 games.  That Atlanta team had no chance against Cleveland.  Remember they followed up that season with a 2nd round sweep at the hand of the Cavs last year.  They just didn't match-up well with the Cavs.  Howard adds an interesting dimension, but not nearly enough for them to have any shot against Cleveland, even if they had kept Horford and Teague.  They just don't have enough top end talent.

Lol. Moranis in the history of my life I have never seen anyone more defensive of a team in any sport on any forum. If anything can even slightly inferred to potentially be a negative against Cleveland you come out of the woodwork and try to refute the point. To be clear, I didn't even say I thought they had a chance of beating them, just that I thought it could have been more competitive.

Responding to your overly defensive nonsense. Yes they were missing Kyle Korver for half the series who had a pretty incredible season shooting 49% from 3 over the course of the season. Demarre Carroll was carried off the court in game 1. This was easy to remember because all the game recaps note limited he was after the first game and that he probably shouldn't have been playing. Game 3, a game that went to overtime, Horford was ejected into the first half. Hard to argue that being forced to play Mike Scott and Muscala 20+ minutes was not significant. This is to say nothing of the fact that Atlanta lost one of their best defenders Sefolosha who definitely would have helped in spurts and given another 6 fouls to use on Lebron.

I also realize that Cleveland was missing Love and that Irving missed time also. That is part of it too. I wanted to see both these teams at full strength.  Atlanta by any measurement was a great team that year with their top 5 healthy and their starting 5 was certainly greater than the sum of it's parts. When they essentially lost 2 starters for the majority of that series they lost that and their extremely mediocre bench was forced to play minutes against a much deeper Cleveland team better built to withstand some injuries. I think most people that like basketball think it would have been a more entertaining and competitive series without the delladova injuries and ejection. I wish you could take off your "must defend Cleveland against anything that could be inferred as a slight" and just act like a normal fan of the game.

It has nothing to do with Cleveland, it has to do with the fact that the Hawks matched up terribly with Cleveland.  And the game Horford was ejected was the game that went to OT.  The Cavs basically played an 8 man rotation with James Jones playing 20 minutes a game.  I don't think I'd call Cleveland a deeper team, especially with their 2 starters out.  A healthier Atlanta team couldn't even win a game against the Cavs, if the teams were both healthy it would have been an even less competitive series.  Some teams are just bad matchups.  I actually think a healthy Hawks team would have had a good shot against Golden State that year as they posed some interesting match-up scenarios.  The Hawks just had no shot at getting by Cleveland.  Just the way it works sometimes.

They did beat Cleveland 3 out of 4 in the regular season (though Lebron did not play in 1 of them) including a 30 point beatdown. I really think you are selling that team short (and yes I do think it has something to do with your pro-cleveland stance).

Team don't just casually win 60 games when they should be expected to be swept in the playoffs by another team (any team). Carroll was really an up coming player before the blew out his leg like that. If you look at his numbers over the last 3 years they have completely cratered. He use to be a great 3 and D player. I think Horford and Milsap are pretty well established as all-star caliber players. At worst, Teague is an average starting point guard and Schroeder is an above average backup. You add in that Korver was shooting 50% on 6 3 pointers a game and that is one of the all time best shooting seasons in NBA history. That team was clicking on all cylinders and they all made each other better. It truly is a shame they never got to play it out that series or the subsequent year at full strength (particularly cause it has fueled this notion that they were exposed and not really a great team).

[max215]

Nope. I've got nothing against Dwight, but Horford vs. Dwight isn't even a question IMO.

[ThaPreacher]

Howard has been the same player for awhile, for some weird reason Houston wanted to minimize his impact to speed the development of Capela so they weren't feeding him the ball very much despite the fact he was shooting 62% from the field last year.

Indeed. Great post Moranis!  Howard's demise was greatly exaggerated.  Harden's desire to have the ball, dribble the ball, shoot the ball-was an issue. Then his matador defense with Howard to clean-up the mess was a dividing point on the Houston Team.  McHale ousted was partially due to his desire to get Harden to play defense and Howard the ball more.  Howard would have been a great fit in Boston.  His rebounding and defense would have made us better team.
I like Horford, but having both of them would have been great.

[Smitty77]

At one point we were actually considered the favorite to sign him. It is unclear if it would have been possible to have both him and Horford, but assuming it was since we were still going after Durant, how good would we look with Howard starting and Amir coming off the bench? He is averaging 15 points and 12 rebounds on 57% shooting to go along with 2.5 blocks.

Hey just put up 31 points on the Lakers. I am not sure how many people thought he still had a lot of 30 point games in him.

And the Hawks lost at HOME to one of the WORST teams in the entire NBA!!!  Empty stats!!!

Smitty77

[greece66]

At one point we were actually considered the favorite to sign him. It is unclear if it would have been possible to have both him and Horford, but assuming it was since we were still going after Durant, how good would we look with Howard starting and Amir coming off the bench? He is averaging 15 points and 12 rebounds on 57% shooting to go along with 2.5 blocks.

Hey just put up 31 points on the Lakers. I am not sure how many people thought he still had a lot of 30 point games in him.

We were never getting Howard and Horford.  Howard's arrival in Atlanta is one reason we got Horford at all.

I prefer Horford because I think his game fits in better with how the Celtics play.  But Howard certainly looks revitalized, and if things had worked out differently such that Dwight came here and Al stayed in Atlanta, I certainly wouldn't regret his signing.

I agree with Saltlover here. It was an either or situation.

It is too early to compare the two, but for what it is worth, Howard has left the best impressions at the beginning of the season. I am still concerned about his character tbh tho.

[SHAQATTACK]

Bad mojo

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Nope. Not one bit. His cons outweigh his pros.

[Diggles]

This TP! 

Do not like Dwight Howard the human but there's no denying that Dwight the Basketball Player is a matchup nightmare on both ends of the court.

I've been scoffed at many times talking to national fans about how I consider the East to be a different brand of Basketball and not inherently "worse". I think guy like Dwight is a good example of why this belief holds some water.

Dwight goes out west and Kobe wants to turn him into Tyson Chandler, he then signs with the Rockets but never quite fits there because like so many Western Conference teams IMO they approach the game as how many shots can we get off by the end of the game, rather than  how well can we make use of each of our possessions. Dwight needs a team to lean on him to a degree. The Rockets essentially used him no differently than Clint Capella and Capella arguably performed that role better since he took up less usage in the offense.

Now that he's back in his home town Atlanta, Dwight looks like his old self again. He's no longer a cog in a system, he is backed to being valued for his individual dominance. Now the attention that Dwight receives trickles down to guard play and wing play. Schroeder can gamble more on steals knowing he's got the big man behind him.

Sometimes I think that teams spend so much attention on making sure that they have perfect spacing that they end up not having anyone who will make use of the spacing at an elite level. Dwight is the kind guy where if you space the floor around him he'll do thing's like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KseN16kJG4

[chambers]

I heard rumors that Al Horford left mainly because of Howard's bad reputation, while Al disputed this but here is the article

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/al-horford-says-he-didnt-leave-hawks-because-of-dwight-howard-signing/

but personally for me, I thought Al and Dwight would've been a crazy front court that will scare CLE. Al wants to play PF and not center and Dwight is purely a center.

Our rebound and interior defense greatly improves and Al is the type to defer, so Dwight would also benefit with a big that passes and all the pick and rolls with IT

I wished we could've still sign him though

I may be wrong, but I think we offered Horford more money than ATL and that's the reason he came here.

[alldaboston]

I heard rumors that Al Horford left mainly because of Howard's bad reputation, while Al disputed this but here is the article

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/al-horford-says-he-didnt-leave-hawks-because-of-dwight-howard-signing/

but personally for me, I thought Al and Dwight would've been a crazy front court that will scare CLE. Al wants to play PF and not center and Dwight is purely a center.

Our rebound and interior defense greatly improves and Al is the type to defer, so Dwight would also benefit with a big that passes and all the pick and rolls with IT

I wished we could've still sign him though

I may be wrong, but I think we offered Horford more money than ATL and that's the reason he came here.

Atlanta was reportedly $6 million short of the max in their offer to Horford.

[alldaboston]

For what it's worth, I still think we've yet to see the best of Horford. But that relies on him being involved in the offense more. He's been great at finding open guys, setting great screens, everything you could ask for on offense-except scoring the ball. We can still use him better. Find him in more pick and pop scenarios. Midrange. 3 point shots. Sometimes give him the ball in the post and let him operate. Try to get a smaller guard mismatched onto him. He's not getting enough chances to score. I would really love for that to change.

[dreamgreen]

I was tempted by the idea of getting Howard along with Horford.

[jambr380]

Yes, I wanted Howard before and would still be happy with him now. I like Horford, but he his more expensive and doesn't have the same dominance on defense that Howard does. I get it, Horford spreads the floor and 'fits in' better with our Cs squad, but I would love to have a guy who rebounds, blocks, and dunks like Howard. He may not be the perennial MVP candidate he once was, but he is still very good; Horford will never be an MVP candidate.

[celticsclay]

Another 20-14 game for Howard, this time in a big win over Houston. I am starting to think he may represent an upgrade for them over horford based on fit.

[Smitty77]

He will get hurt and ONCE AGAIN miss a LOT of the season!!!

Just wait.

Smitty77