Hello,
Dwight Howard free throw shooting nightmare continued last night as he missed 8 of 16 free throws. For Howard making 50% of his free throws is pretty good by his standards this season. This season he's shooting .468 from the foul line. Let this stat boggle your mind a bit. So far this season Howard has missed 108 free throws. 108! He leads the league in that stat by a considerable margin. The next closest person in number of missed free throws is Blake Griffin. He's missed about 31 free throws this season. Howard averages 6 missed free throws a game. He's also missed over 40 free throws in the fourth quarter. (Thanks to espn.com, Mike & Mike and Tim Legler.)
I like to make comparisons like the following. Howard has shot 52 more free throws than Kobe Bryant. However Bryant has made 36 more free throws than Howard. Think about that for awhile. Howard's free shooting literally is a nightmare, but it's a nightmare of his own making. I'm guessing Bryant shot thousands of free throws growing up, my other guess is that Howard wasn't as dedicated.
This was Lakers Coach Mike D'Antoni's rationale for not taking Howard out in the 4th quarter.
"If you take him out now, then you'll be taking out a guy that's going to be your franchise player all the time," he said. "We've got other problems to worry about. We shouldn't be talking about him. He's doing a (heck) of a job and he'll work through it and knock them down."
They really chose D'Antoni over Phil Jackson to be LA's coach? Why is D'Antoni protecting Howard? Shouldn't Howard be called out for his horrendous free throw shooting? Especially since that is such a key part of the game. It's a weakness other teams take full advantage of. If the opponent intentionally fouling Howard is part of a team's strategy, isn't that something that should be mentioned?
Also since when is Howard the Lakers' franchise player? Isn't Bryant the Lakers' franchise player? Yes, they have other issues to worry about, like a coach making excuses for a player that should be making free throws. For nearly $20 million a year, Howard should make at least 70% of his free throws. There simply is no excuse that he doesn't. It's just pure laziness on Howard's part. I expect this to be Howard's only season as a Laker.
I also wonder how long D'Antoni is going to last as Lakers' coach. Is it possible that D'Antoni doesn't survive this season? I realize everyone is waiting for Steve Nash to come back. But how about if Nash does come back and the Lakers aren't noticeably better? What happens then?
This is what Howard said about his horrific free throw shooting night:
"People are going to say whatever they want to say, but at the end of the day, go back and look at the game," he said. "The reason we lost was not my free throws. That didn't lose us the game. Our defense was not there in the fourth quarter."
Again the defensive lapses did hurt the Lakers. However Howard saying his free throws didn't lose the game for the Lakers is either delusional or disingenuous. The Lakers lost by 2 points as Howard missed 8 free throws. If Howard made 70% of his free throws in this game, that gives the Lakers 3 more points. Now there's no guarantee the result of the game would be different, but those 3 additional points certainly give the Lakers a much better chance to win. The other aspect is the Rockets decided to foul Howard in the fourth quarter rather than letting Bryant have the ball. Do you blame the Rockets?
I understand how Cowboys fans feel Dallas is so terrible as I feel the same when the Lakers suck.
themusicaddict
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