Dwight Howard would be an enormous upgrade for our team on so many levels.
We have the right locker room to reign him in. He will be the man, but he'll be held accountable.
If Kevin Mchale loves him, there's a reason for it.
It's apparent that those people slinging mud on Howard didn't watch much of last year's playoffs- a playoffs where he was coming back from a back injury which saw him sit out 75% of the regular season. He was dominant in the paint on the defensive end and without him they would never have gotten to the Western Conference finals.
At age 30, he's missed time with injuries- and those injuries mean he's not the same as 2009-2010 Dwight Howard- but it also means he's basically had 2 seasons without any playing time on his legs- so his legs are fresher than most 30 year olds.
We don't need him to be an elite scorer, we just need him to be a bigger, stronger, more imposing version of Amir Johnson that will put fear into the minds of Lebron or Kyrie Irving driving to the basket.
His 14 points and 12 rebounds per game would be a nice bonus, and the changes to the hack a shaq rule will also mean he's less of a liability from that standpoint.
If we can trade for Dwight Howard knowing that he'd be willing to re-sign here, then we should 100% pull the trigger on packages that don't include IT,Crowder,Bradley, Smart, the Brooklyn picks or Olynyk.
Just think for a second about the following line up and the defensive power and three point/spacing of that line up:
IT
Bradley
Crowder
Olynyk
Howard
switching to
Smart
Bradley
Crowder
Olynyk
Howard
Dwight Howard on our team would arguably make us the best defensive team in the NBA with no exaggeration. Not many guys in the NBA can claim that.