“Was Dwight Howard’s exclusion from the NBA’s top-75 players of all time really a snub?”: The case for the likes Bill Walton, Patrick Ewing over former Orlando Magic center

Lakers star Center Dwight Howard was recently distraught about his NBA Top-75 snub, but was it really a snub?

Dwight Howard is undoubtedly one of the best Centers to ever play the game of basketball. He is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, that’s a no-brainer.

At one point, the Lakers star was the most dominant big man in the league. That period wasn’t that long ago, 2008-2012, his time with the Orlando Magic. Those five years he was First Team All-NBA.

In fact, he was even second in the race of MVP in 2011 just behind Derrick Rose, and no one in the NBA would have uttered a single word if he won that trophy instead of the Chicago Bulls dynamite. Such was his dominance at the time in the presence of Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, and many other all-time greats.

Also read:  JJ Redick was shocked at Dwight Howard and Klay Thompson’s exclusion from NBA 75

But was that period enough to determine whether he deserved a top-75 place of all time over the likes of George Mikan, Bill Walton, Paul Arizin, or Dave DeBusschere?

These legends were from different eras between the 50s and 80s. All those big men were either MVPs or Finals MVP or scoring champions. Whoever among them had lesser All-Star and All-NBA appearances than Dwight had multiple MVPs.

So how would it be fair to replace them with Dwight Howard? And we haven’t even considered championships yet. Even though Dwight was Defensive Player of the Year thrice, all those guys led their franchises to at least 1 Championship, Dwight won his chip in 2020, at the later end of his career playing a role for the Lakers.

Was Dwight Howard really a snub from the top-75?

For sure Dwight’s snub can be of question by asking about Patrick Ewing’s selection before him because the 11-time All-Star didn’t have the resume all these above-mentioned big men have.

But Patrick Ewing came along during an era of many great big men like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Shaquille O’ Neal, Yao Ming, and Ralph Sampson and he still performed at a top level for more than a decade averaging 21 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks compared to Dwight’s 16.2, 12.1, and 1.9.

His game since he left the Lakers after his first stint back in 2012, has declined enormously.  He showed a part of his old self, in his role with the Lakers’ 2020 Championship squad but is struggling to make an impact this season while complaining about his snub. This was his last night’s performance against the Heat,

Also read: Dwight Howard talks about being snubbed from the NBA’s 75th-anniversary team

With the level of fitness he has maintained throughout his career, had Dwight developed the slightest of mentality Kobe Bryant so famously and desperately wanted him to develop, he would have led the Lakers to championships along with Kobe, be in the top-75, and still be performing at a top-level.