Philadelphia 76ers: The weirdness of Dwight Howard

With Dwight Howard, less is more. The Philadelphia 76ers continue to get a strangely mixed bag.

The Philadelphia 76ers have gotten what they paid for with Dwight Howard. Making the veteran minimum of $2.6 million, the 35-year-old is averaging 5.8 points and 7.7 rebounds in 17.0 minutes per contest. He has appeared in all 24 games, and is a fixture in the second unit behind Joel Embiid.

Given his age, nobody rightfully expected a flawless season from Dwight. He is far removed from his All-Star days, and there’s no Defensive Player of the Year award in sight. That said, the mere strangeness of Howard’s season — from his entertainingly frustrating chaos on the court to his innate goofiness off it — has been quite the underserved storyline.

Howard has been both a joy and a headache to watch this season. He’s still vacuuming up rebounds at 35, but he’s also a step slower defensively. He’s an ardent shot-blocker and an imposing physical force at the rim, but his career-worst 6.6 fouls per 36 minutes is the best indicator of Father Time’s influence.

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All season long, Howard has been the whistle’s faithful companion. He can’t stick with quicker bigs in space, and he’s sometimes slow to react at the rim. The result is a steady dose of fouls. No matter how often he complains — and trust me, the frequency of Howard’s complaints are astonishing — any remotely unbiased observer can admit Howard does, more often than not, deserve the fouls assigned to him.

On the other hand, Howard does still have a strength and a springiness that most bigs half his age never achieve. He can alter shots on a regular basis and he’s a bloodhound on the boards, sniffing out rebounds better than anyone on the Sixers roster. It’s a balance of chaos and hustle that often teeters between beneficial and harmful.

Howard’s offense is just as difficult to grasp. Not long ago, Howard was a dunk contest champion and one of the league’s premier lob threats. Now his hands have regressed severely, leading to avoidable turnovers and the occasional botched dunk.

He can still get up high enough to for a poster slam. He does so often. But Howard’s inability to control the ball in tight spaces and the overwhelming disaster potential every time he decides to dribble, makes for a stressful viewing experience. He does his job and has bought into a complementary role, but there are still moments where Howard thinks he’s 25, not 35.

Even after his championship run in LA, this is a difficult adjustment for Howard, who spent most of his career as a top option. He’s much better at picking and choosing his spots now than he was three years ago, for example, but Howard still takes the occasional liberty that most long-time backup centers do not.

There is an erratic nature to Howard that can often prove detrimental. Even so, his immense physical talent still shines through as we approach the twilight of his career. He has genuinely special moments on defense, and he’s still good for a strong dunk every now and then. There is no shortage of frustrating moments, sure, but for a veteran minimum center, he is perfectly adequate — even above average, in some matchups. Not to mention his influential leadership skills, which have shaped the locker room this season.