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Bill Simmons once compared Josh Howard to Scottie Pippen and Kevin McHale

He exaggerated Howard's talent. Howard was still a much better than average NBA player. Shame that his time ended a little earlier than it should have. It will be a long time before we see a better draft than 2003.

Fantastic column. Simmons is annoying but he does nice work. I thought the Chris Bosh-Sam Perkins comparison was dead on. Bosh added a lot of time to his career by changing his game. He also made some good points of just how hard it is to win multiple championships simply from the standpoint of how many games it takes to contend for a 3rd straight championship. His point about how Jordan probably wouldn't have won 4 straight in 1999 makes a lot of sense.

The Spurs next year are doing what the Heat were trying to do this year at least in terms of the number of games played. Their depth and youth will make it more likely, but still difficult. It will be interesting to see how the top contenders in the West and the Pacers and Bulls develop their depth throughout the season.
 
To people shocked that Wade broke down, he's the same age as J-Ho, right?
 
palmab03 said:
To people shocked that Wade broke down, he's the same age as J-Ho, right?
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No. Josh is two years older. He was a post-grad and stayed 4 years whereas Wade left after 3 years. Of course, Howard broke down about 3-4 years ago.

To Simmons' point about Josh in 2007, by the time he was selected to the 2007 All-Star team, Josh had a very good 2 year stretch going in which he was an elite defender and getting his shot together. The problem that Simmons may not have realized is that he was 27 by the end of that season even though it was his 4th in the league. Kawhi on the other hand, will be finishing his 8th season at 27.
 
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Howard was also pretty snake bit with injuries throughout his career.
 
Howard's ceiling was pretty damn high when he was healthy. Popovich really liked him as a player according to Dinger. He used to give Buford shit about passing on him.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Howard's ceiling was pretty damn high when he was healthy. Popovich really liked him as a player according to Dinger. He used to give Buford shit about passing on him.
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Well, he did eventually sign him (in the pre-season this year). Just a tad late.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Howard's ceiling was pretty damn high when he was healthy. Popovich really liked him as a player according to Dinger. He used to give Buford shit about passing on him.
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Howard had a high ceiling. He just had a limited time to reach that ceiling. He would have been fantastic in the Bruce Bowen role.

I heard at the time that the Spurs brass thought his comments about the Iraq War would make him unpopular in SA. Somebody heard that from Dinger who was (and maybe still is) working as a scout for the Spurs.

The Spurs really screwed up the 2003 draft. First, they passed on Howard with the 28th pick and picked up Barbosa in a trade for Phoenix's 2005 pick. The Spurs packaged that 2005 pick and their 2006 1st round pick and Malik Rose for Nazr Mohammad.

Who was that 2005 pick they originally got from Phoenix? David Lee.

The Spurs essentially passed on the last two All-Stars picked at the end of the 1st round.
 
His career average PER is 207th all time, according to basketball-reference. That's actually pretty good considering the number of lost seasons he had.
 
bigdoublezero said:
His career average PER is 207th all time, according to basketball-reference. That's actually pretty good considering the number of lost seasons he had.
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Wow. Howard was so legit on those mid-2000s Mavs teams. He singled-handedly made them decent defensive teams. I haven't looked at his numbers in a long time.

In the Mavs 2006 Finals run, his playoff average was 16.7 and 7.4.

In 2007, they were upset in the 1st round by the 8 seed Warriors. Hard to blame Josh. He averaged 21.3 pts, 9.8 reb, 2.4 ast, 2.2 stl.
 
PhDeac said:
Wow. Howard was so legit on those mid-2000s Mavs teams. He singled-handedly made them decent defensive teams. I haven't looked at his numbers in a long time.

In the Mavs 2006 Finals run, his playoff average was 16.7 and 7.4.

In 2007, they were upset in the 1st round by the 8 seed Warriors. Hard to blame Josh. He averaged 21.3 pts, 9.8 reb, 2.4 ast, 2.2 stl.
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But wasn't 2007 the year he had is birthday party during the series, inviting everyone on the team to a late night rager, then they lost the next night. I thought the fans were pissed and blamed him for the losses even though he was putting up great numbers. Maybe I have the wrong year.
 
I think that was the next season.
 
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