Hakeem Olajuwon Says Dwight Howard Is Ready For MVP-Caliber Season
Houston Rockets legend and player development specialist Hakeem Olajuwon has had Rockets center Dwight Howard high on his priority list since Houston signed Howard in free agency last summer. Olajuwon has worked with Howard intensely, and his expectations for Howard this season are sky-high, via Fran Blinebury of NBA.com:
He’s healthy. He’s strong. He’s ready. Now it’s about having the attitude to go out every night and dominate.
He’s older, more mature and you can tell that he is feeling better physically. I like what I saw. He is a very hard worker. He takes the job seriously and you can see that he has used some of the things we talked about last season and is making them part of his game.
Howard came to the Rockets still recovering from a back operation in 2012. He averaged 18.3 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks for Houston in his first season as a Rocket. Olajuwon thinks the 28-year-old will improve on that,
It was a good start, but last year Dwight was still trying to recover from the back surgery and to feel like himself again. I think a lot of people don’t appreciate what it is like for an athlete to have a back injury. It is serious. It is a challenge.
I could see last year when I worked with him in camp that there were some things that he could not do. Or they were things that he did not think he could do. The difference now is that he is fit and those doubts are gone. This is the player who can go back to being the best center in the league and the kind of player that can lead his team to a championship. I think he should be dominant at both ends of the floor.
High praise coming from Olajuwon, who won the MVP award in 1994 when he became the only player in NBA history to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and Finals MVP in the same season. He led the Rockets to the first of two consecutive championships in that season.
Olajuwon clearly expects Howard to have an MVP-caliber season. Howard’s defensive presence helped develop the Rockets on that end of the floor, but his offensive game has yet to be fully polished. Does the Hall of Famer know something we don’t in terms of Howard’s progression?
We all know that center is the key position in the game. Everything should go through you — offense and defense and the right mentality. If the center is thinking about dominating, the team can go far, can go all the way.
