Hakeem tutoring Dwight Howard

[il Padrino Ute]

Is The Dream teaching Howard his 5-steps-without-putting-the-ball-on-the-floor move that served him so well most of his career?

[Color Me Badd Fan]

are there many examples of bigs that were able to significantly improve their fundamentals over the course of their careers? It reminds me of Shaq with all those FT tactics.....if you can't do it by the time you get into the league, you probably can't do it, at least if you are a center.

These 5s have relied on their size/strength their entire career. Much like a pitcher's ability to bat, do centers display an ability to improve significantly in fundamental areas such as outside shooting or footwork? I can't think of many examples of centers that have adapted their game to a noticeable degree.

I guess Kareem developed the sky hook, which proved to be lethal.

Hakeem was a work in progress when he went to college and even in the first couple years in the NBA. But he already had the nimble, quick feet due to playing soccer all the time growing up. I think generally it is the rule that these guys don't improve much and many of them are stiff because they've relied on their superior size growing up.

[Sizzle]

This is true, but not everyone develops into such a consistent shooter. I think once the physical dominating skills diminish the greats find ways to score outside the paint. I don't ever see Dwight Howard developing any such skills. I think the easiest barometer of judgment is his FT shooting.

Again, look at Karl Malone as an example. He shot 48% as a rookie and 59% in his second year. While he was never a money shooter at the line, he developed into a nearly 80% FT shooter later on.

[dabrockster]

Man. Is it just me or does Hakeem look smooth and even looks like he jumps higher then Howard. Howard's Jump hook look robotic while Hakeem looks smooth as silk...

[Non Sequitur]

This is true, but I am wondering about centers specifically.

I liken them to pitchers. Pitchers focus on pitching, which is why they are generally horrible hitters. They aren't incredibly great base runners and rarely have speed, so you don't see them steal many bases if they do get on. They never really were expected to develop fundamentals in other aspects of the game.

Likewise, a center is generally asked to anchor the paint. These kids are bigger than everyone else their entire lives and are used to playing in a small designated area on both offense and defense. They aren't expected to do much else. As a result, centers are generally terrible ball handlers, they generally can't shoot consistently from more than 5 feet from the basket, they are fairly slow in the open court, they are not good at moving without the ball, etc. There are exceptions, of course, but even guys like Duncan that defy much of what I listed....they aren't really true centers, but power forwards playing center.

I don't know, maybe Im up in the night on this.

That's true for American born centers. Not so much for others.

[old_gregg]

i wonder how many takes they had to do for him to make a jumpshot

[Jacob]

He also appeared on Pros vs. Joes this summer, teaming up with Isaiah Rider and Brent Barry to narrowly defeat three former Juco players.

He also teamed up with Kenny Smith and Richard fox o narrowly lose to 3 NFL guys, including mcnabb.