Not only does Dwight Howard have a bunch of critics to silence in Houston, but he also has to impress Hakeem Olajuwon who is mentoring him. Hakeem arguably had the best footwork of any big man in the post, and no one ever accused Dwight of being a polished back-to-the-basket player. That spells trouble.
Apparently, The Dream isn’t impressed with Dwight so far and wants him to do better.
“The truth is that I can’t wait to get back to Houston to do more work with Dwight,” Olajuwon told NBA.com (via ProBasketballTalk). “I wish he was doing a better job.
“Dwight has always been athletic and aggressive and he still is. But when I watch him, what I see are opportunities that he is missing. When he gets the ball, he seems to be taking his time to decide what move to make, where he should go.
“There should not be a delay for Dwight. He must be able to make a faster recognition of the situations and react immediately with a go-to move. You must move right away before the defense has a chance to set up. You must be the one making the first move so that you can force the defender to always be the one reacting.
“I thought we were doing a good job with this when we were working together over the summer and at the start of training camp. But what I see now is that when Dwight gets in competition, he has a tendency to go back to all of his old habits. He’s just doing all of the things that he did before. He needs a reminder.”
H/T: SportingNews
