The NBA has seen its share of dominant centers who could just take over a game with their strength and ability. Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell come to mind effortlessly. So do Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaquille O’Neal. There are others, too… But one who often gets overlooked, that too despite playing relatively recently, is Dwight Howard.
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With a career that spanned from 2004 to 2022, Howard was a man among boys during his prime. He won three straight Defensive Player of the Year awards (from 2009 to 2011) while leading the Magic to their second Finals appearance in franchise history in 2009. He was the best rebounder and shot-blocker in the league at the time.
Gilbert Arenas only played 49 games for the Magic toward the end of his career. But that short time alongside Howard had left an impression. On the Games with Names podcast with Julian Edelman, he talked about what it was like seeing Howard up close.
“I [have] seen a monster that was coming,” Arenas said. “If he never got hurt, he was going to be an MVP, hands down.”
Howard entered the league at just 19. And so, the 2010-11 season, the one in which Arenas arrived in a December trade, was his seventh year in the league.
Agent Zero really did get the full Superman experience. Howard played 78 games that year (amazingly, the fewest in his career to that point). He finished second in the MVP voting, his third straight year in the top four.
Howard was such an intimidating force that he even instilled fear in the Big 3 of the Miami Heat. Arenas told a story of how the Magic came back from a big deficit after Howard laid out a plan. “I remember we were playing Miami,” he began narrating.
“We’re down, I think 18 at the half, and everybody’s going back and forth, and he was like, ‘Listen, it’s not that hard. Turk [Hedo Türkoğlu], you guard Dwyane Wade. Let him through. I’m gonna hit him so hard, he will just take jumpers the rest of the night, and then LeBron’s going to take jumpers the rest of the night,'” continued Arenas.
“‘They’re not going to come in here anymore, so then you can play as aggressive as you want, and we’re gonna win this game.’ Open the door, Dwyane tries to come in, hits a wall [SMACK]. Sure enough, all jump shots, we ended up coming back and winning. They were afraid of Dwight because he was so physical, and he was so athletic,” added Arenas.
However, Howard hurt his back the very next year and was never quite the same player. He played only 54 games in the 2011-12 season, his final year in Orlando.
After that, he bounced around the league as a more-than-serviceable big man, averaging a double-double for many years. But Howard, who won a championship ring with the Lakers in 2020, never could recapture that MVP form.
Injuries are an unfortunate reality of sports. And Howard’s career is a reminder of how important health is in allowing a player to reach his full potential. He is sometimes overlooked whenever great centers are brought up, but evidently, he shouldn’t be.
