To Franchise or Not to Franchise

In today’s NBA, what constitutes a franchise/cornerstone player?

Star power. Elite or versatile skill set. Youth and/or superb health record. Superior athleticism. Leadership/dependability. Obviously, in an ideal world, you want your franchise cornerstone to have all five of those qualities (and really, I listed eight qualities)—but there’s only one Lebron James and only one Kevin Durant.

That said, if you have a player that checks off four of those five boxes, you’re definitely thinking about offering him a max contract and feeling confident that he can be a vital piece if not the foundation for a championship-caliber franchise.

So, the question the Los Angeles Lakers should be asking themselves is—is Dwight Howard a franchise player?

Let’s go down the list after the jump.

1. Star power. Howard has this in spades. Nicknamed Superman and with terabytes of highlight reel dunks on his resume, Howard was just voted into the All-Star Game by fans as a starter for the sixth time in his career. He was the leading vote getter last year, and set an All-Star Game record by earning 3,151,181 votes in 2008-09. His Lakers jersey is No. 9 on NBA.com in terms of sales and in 2012 he ranked No. 13 on Sports Illustrated’s Fortunate 50 with $12 million in endorsement earnings.

Despite the massive popularity hit he took for how he handled his last couple of seasons in Orlando, and despite that continued trend now in Los Angeles, Howard remains one of the NBA’s biggest stars.

2. Youth and/or superb health. Youthwise, Howard is 27 and should be entering his prime. The emphasis on “should” must be noted. Howard missed only seven games over the first seven seasons of his career, but has run into a couple of debilitating injuries over the last 10 months. Last year, he suffered a herniated disk in his back that caused him to miss the last 12 games of the season. That same back injury has lingered this year, though hasn’t caused him to miss any games. He has, however, missed six games due to a labrum tear in his right shoulder that will require surgery at some point and currently has him playing tentative basketball. Brief synopsis, Howard has missed nearly three times as many games this season and last as he did the first seven seasons of his career. 

3. Superior athlete. Pre-injury, Howard was 1A to Lebron James in terms of athleticism. It was his otherworldly combination of speed, leaping ability, strength, and agility that earned him three Defensive Player of the Year awards from 2009-11. But his recovery from back surgery has been slow and while he remains a good athlete, he no longer qualifies as an elite athlete, let alone an awe-inspiring one.

While there are those who estimate it will take him a year to regain that athleticism, there is another school of thinking that believes he’ll never quite be the same. Take for example the case of David Robinson—who like Howard, was once an insanely built physical specimen who dominated on the defensive end and was arguably the league’s best athlete at his pinnacle (well, he and Michael Jordan).

Two years after Robinson won his MVP, he suffered a back injury during the preseason. He played the first six games of the 1997 season before suffering a broken foot and sitting the rest of the year. The foot healed just fine, but the back, and subsequently, Robinson, were never the same.  

While Robinson was 31 that year, it is interesting to note the amount of minutes he had played. Up to his back injury, Robinson had registered 21,353 regular season minutes and 2,084 postseason minutes—at about 38 per game. Up until Howard’s injury last year, he had played in 22,550 regular season minutes and 2,246 postseason minutes, at 36.5 per.

It’s not a perfect analogy since part of Robinson’s statistical decline came because of the rise of Tim Duncan. That said, there were many nights that Robinson looked completely out of sorts—immobile, stiff. The similarities to Howard’s Jekyll and Hyde, game-to-game play this year are eerie.

Consider also these Howard admissions:  “I still feel tingling in my legs all the way down to my feet”, “My back is only 75 percent”, and that “It takes at least nine months to get strength back in your legs.” Howard had surgery at the end of April 2012—over nine months ago. He actually looked his most athletic in his first game of the season and has been wildly up-and-down in that regard, though has never once looked like the superman that once famously did this.  

And if Howard is no longer the same athlete, then his skill set takes a major hit.

4. Elite and/or versatile skillset. Howard is a three-time Defensive Player of the Year award recipient, a four-time rebound-champ, a two-time block leader, and a four-time All NBA Defensive first team honoree. Without question his elite skill is his defense. With his strength, quickness, leaping ability, and timing, he has been without peer in terms of his versatility on the opposite side of the ball and has single-handedly vaulted mediocre defensive talent into the NBA’s upper echelon of defenses.  

Offensively, is a different story. While he is not as bad of a post player as advertised (when given space), he remains robotic in the post, has limited range outside of five feet, turns the ball over at a high rate, and is an atrocious in-game freethrow shooter. 

The fact the Laker’s two best offensive players (Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant) thrive in the post and the team’s only credible, consistent shooter plays point guard (and has been injured), has only exacerbated Howard’s offensive limitations. In Orlando, Howard was always surrounded by elite three point shooters at nearly every position that could space the floor for him. Stan Van Gundy basically was running an offense similar to what the Houston Rockets ran in 94-95. Hakeem Olajuwon won two rings and the Orlando Magic went all the way to the NBA finals playing this style.  

But in LA, Howard hasn’t gotten the space he needs to operate efficiently. Instead, he’s seen a steady stream of double teams from defenders cheating off of Metta World Peace, Gasol and Bryant. It’s why Mike D’Antoni has recently been running Howard out there with four three-point bombers as his second unit.

Howard’s also seen a lot of hard fouls when he tries to go up with the ball because teams would rather put him on the line then give him the easy two. One of those fouls resulted in his shoulder injury, and the next one could result in him re-aggravating it.   

What has become clear is that he wants the ball on the post so that he can go one-on-one with his man—by far the least efficient aspect of his offensive game. The problem is, he rarely hustles down the floor to establish deep offensive position on the block like Blake Griffin has learned to do this year for the Clippers. When Howard has done so, both Nash and Bryant have gotten him the ball.

Howard also doesn’t move without the ball. Notice how often Earl Clark and World Peace get passes from Bryant and Nash. It’s because they are constantly in motion, looking for the double team on the ball handler and picking their spots to either fade to open spots on the floor, or dive towards the hoop. Howard, as clearly evidenced in yesterday’s game against the Heat, has not been moving. Nash, widely considered the greatest teammate in the NBA, had some angry words for Howard after a botched play that resulted in a Heat score. Kevin Ding of the OC Register offers some insight into this ongoing source of frustration.  

Further along this point, is Howard’s curious unwillingness to run the pick and roll—a play that has been devastatingly effective for Howard throughout his career. When he actually sets a solid pick and rolls hard to the basket, the Lakers have been very successful. Not only does Howard score much more efficiently, but this action also opens up the floor for everyone else and creates the ball movement that D’Antoni preaches.

But Howard rarely gives solid picks anymore—opting to slip the picks instead—while also making noise about getting more touches in the paint.

5. Leadership/Dependability. Howard has proven that he is light years away from being both a leader and dependable.

There has been much debate as to who is to blame for the Lakers woes this year. Bryant was the obvious first choice as he was shooting 22 shots (nearly a third more than the next highest shot total) a game while averaging 30 points. Then everyone was blaming Gasol because he was unable to adapt to D’Antoni’s system. The next flavor of the month was D’Antoni, who appeared lost and unable to manage anything, let alone the elephantine egos littering the Lakers locker-room (I still maintain he is the biggest problem, as a competent coach capable of ego management and/or capable of drawing up an actual gameplan would at the very least give this team some form of structure). Now, people are pointing to Nash, his sluggish start, and his extreme defensive limitations.

All the while, Howard has taken his share of criticism, while talking ad nauseum this season about “coming together” and “sacrificing.” Yet, he remains the only player that has yet to sacrifice much of anything. Bryant (while still a bit too ball dominant, especially in crunch time) has transformed his game by becoming the team’s facilitator. Nash too has transformed his game as a spot-up shooter. Gasol, before his injury and despite being a much better post player than Howard, had taken to a sixth man role.

All to accommodate Howard.

Howard’s return to the lineup to play through his torn labrum is one positive step in the right direction, as have been the handful of games where Howard has set hard picks, rebounded the ball, and played smothering defense. But coming back to the lineup, when the team lost Gasol, took coddling from Bryant, D’Antoni, and Nash.

Howard made clear why he was sitting out despite being cleared to play by team doctors and knowing that it would not get better unless he had surgery. 

"I want to play," Howard said before the Los Angeles Lakers played the Boston Celtics last Thursday. “I mean, why wouldn't I want to play? But at the same time, this is my career, this is my future, this is my life. I can't leave that up to anybody else because nobody else is going to take care of me. So, if people are pissed off that I don't play or if I do play, whatever it may be, so what? This is my career. If I go down, then what? Everybody's life is going to go on. I don't want to have another summer where I'm rehabbing and trying to get healthy again. I want to come back and have another great year. That's what I want to do."

At no point did he mention that as a paid employee of the Lakers (one making $19 million this season), it is his responsibility and duty to play if physically able to. In Kevin Ding’s piece, it talks about how Howard was out shooting three point shots during warm ups—hardly the sign of a player in agonizing pain.

At no point did Howard mention that as a franchise player, he understands that he needs to set the tone for the organization. Bryant is well known for playing through injuries, often spending sleepless nights in rehab getting treatment, just so he could take the floor for the next game. He’s played through a torn labrum himself. He’s played through broken noses, ankle injuries, shin injuries, hand and finger injuries (that have physically been ruined for life) and he is currently playing through an elbow sprain and tendonitis in his shooting arm. And these injuries took place when he was young, when he was in a contract year, and now when he’s old. It rarely ever seemed about his future, only about the next win. His future would work itself out if he kept playing and kept winning. Five championships later, and it largely has.    

On the flipside, Howard has made a big deal out of his injuries and his future—talking at length about the injury this year, and staying quiet on his future after talking too much about it last year in Orlando. Typically, when Bryant is asked about an injury, he quickly brushes it aside. Howard has also gone out of his way to both verbally and visually show his unhappiness. His lackadaisical effort in many games this season has been embarrassing at best, shameful at worst.

Leading by example is one way to lead, even if you struggle as a locker-room voice.

Howard’s light-hearted, jovial locker-room presence has often been criticized. Shaquille O’Neal and Howard have often been linked, for their fun-loving ways, witty interviews, goofy personas, controversial moves from Orlando to LA, and their sheer dominance in the paint (though their games remain diametrically opposite outside of their struggles from the line). That said, O’Neal wanted to destroy whoever he was playing against. He wanted to drop 40 and do so in humiliating fashion. In that way, he and Bryant were similar. In that way, he lead on the court.

Howard not only doesn’t have that offensive dominating post game in him, he doesn’t have that same bite. In fact, he’s all bark—more woofs than anything—just passive aggressive complaints that he often flip-flops on from one statement to the next. Instead of going out and dominating defensively to the point he straight embarrasses the opposition, he seems to pout when he doesn’t get the ball.

O’Neal pouted too for sure—famously saying, “If the big dog ain’t me, the house won’t get guarded,” but he was capable of dropping 40 points on any night. Howard’s lacking offensive repertoire coupled with today’s defensive schemes make 40 points a true rarity for him.      

O’Neal couldn’t appreciate the fire and drive that Bryant brought with him every night. O’Neal only saw the arrogance, and that rubbed him the wrong way.

If Howard really wants to avoid following in O’Neal’s footsteps, he should man up and really, truly learn a thing or two from Bryant. Because Howard with Bryant’s cutthroat mentality, even if his athleticism never returns to its previous heights, will dominate the NBA for many years.

But Howard is not Bryant. That much is clear.

And based upon this breakdown—he is far from the franchise player Bryant has been since O’Neal left as well.

He is young, and could very well get fully healthy by next season.

But right now, the Lakers are hoping that his health returns to his previous heights, despite evidence that it is unlikely. They are hoping that he suddenly figures it all out and matures, despite nine years of immaturity that continues to persist like Elmyra Duff.  

Howard doesn’t have the stomach for criticism, yet still craves the spotlight. He doesn’t have the back (literally and figuratively) to do the heavy lifting, but wants the glory. He doesn’t have the skills to dominate on offense, yet still wants the ball.

And despite all of the aforementioned, Howard still fancies himelf a franchise player, despite not currently possessing one defining attribute that would signify him as such.