Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic is without a doubt the best pure center in the league today. It’s not an argument because in all aspects, it doesn’t make sense to argue against it. He is a physical monster who has studiously filled out his frame with a bevy of post skills, plays unbelievable defense and produces at an enormous rate in the post.
What most people seem to dislike in Dwight is his perceived lack of dominance, considering how much better he is as a five than the next closest center. Almost like an indictment of Dwight because of the ability (or lack thereof) of other centers, many argue that Howard should destroy other teams in the post just based on his throwback physicality in a league where post players have gotten sleeker and, on many teams, smaller. The eye test would tell you Dwight Howard is the best five in the game, but
A) Partially because his competition is paltry. And
B) He just isn’t as good as he can be, considering the lack of talent opposing him.
During the 2010-2011 season, Dwight Howard had his best statistical year to date. He put up an absolutely dominant performance and, rightfully so, finished in the top two in MVP voting. But the idea that he didn’t dominate as he should have came up in the criticism of Howard again, despite Dwight leading an average Orlando Magic squad to 52 wins. So how does Dwight Howard stack up against three recent all time great centers? We took a look at the most efficient seasons (as determined by ESPN’s John Hollinger’s PER rating) by Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon to find out if Dwight is squandering his ability in a way these guys never would. For those of you who don’t know, PER, or player efficiency rating, is a statistic that determines all the productive plays a given player makes per minute of activity. An average center would rate a 15.00 in PER.
SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
Shaq was a revelation, an unstoppable force in the NBA almost from day one. His rookie season in Orlando was tremendous, and his four year run in Los Angeles from 1999 to 2003 was about as dominant as has ever been seen, as his win share rating shows he contributed an extra 70 wins to the Lakers during his tenure. Shaq’s most efficient year in that run was the 1999-2000 season (by a smidgen over the following season) when he posted a PER of 30.6, tops in the league. He also ranked top three in the league in Usage rate, figuring in on 31.2% of the Lakers plays. Traditional numbers, Shaq averaged 29.7 points on 57% shooting from the field, and rightfully won the MVP while the Lakers took the Larry O’Brien trophy. His 18.8 win shares was a number right up there with the most productive years of guys like David Robinson. Put it simply, Shaq destroyed his competition. But what was his competition?
1999-00 PER by Centers
Player | Team | PER |
Shaquille O’Neal | Lakers | 30.6 |
David Robinson | Spurs | 24.6 |
Arvydas Sabonis | Trail Blazers | 20.3 |
Cedric Ceballos | Mavericks | 18.1 |
Vlade Divac | Kings | 18.0 |
Raef Lafrentz | Nuggets | 16.3 |
Kelvin Cato | Rockets | 15.9 |
Greg Ostertag | Jazz | 13.5 |
Adonal Foyle | Warriors | 12.3 |
Horace Grant | Sonics | 11.7 |
Rasho Nesterovic | Timberwolves | 11.0 |
Bryant Reeves | Grizzlies | 10.6 |
Michael Olowokandi | Clippers | 10.4 |
Luc Longley | Suns | 8.8 |
Not Shaq | Western Conference | 14.73 |
As it turns out, Shaq wrecked a rather anemic western conference. Hollinger’s PER assumes the average center would post an efficiency rating of 15. During Shaq’s most dominant year, the Western Conference on average put out centers that were worse than a simple roster filler. Only David Robinson had an exemplary full season, (Sabonis was in and out of injuries,) and in the Lakers Pacific division, the PER rating Shaq contended against most often, was down to 13.58. O’Neal absolutely had an all-time great season, but he did so against very inferior competition.
The flip side of this is The Diesel did what Dwight Howard is often accused of not doing, which is just plain destroying inferior competition. Shaq posted similar numbers the following year, and continued on that pace while his only real intra-conference positional rivals were an aging David Robinson and a fragile Yao Ming.
HAKEEM OLAJUWON
When a player has a signature move associated with him, you know he was great. Think about the Marseille Roll and images of Zinedine Zidane pirouetting around a befuddled Brazilian midfield come to mind. When you hear the words “Dream Shake” you think of a gigantic man poetically spinning, pump faking and gracefully depositing a ball too small into a hoop too big. If Shaquille O’Neal was a physical revelation, a hurricane tearing the roof off everything in path, Olajuwon was a steady storm that erodes everything underneath it methodically and efficiently. The late 80s and early 90s saw a league with prominent centers and forward/centers, and if they weren’t deferring to Jordan, they were deferring to Hakeem. He averaged double digit win shares eight times in his career, and his most efficient year, the 1992-93 season, saw Dream roll up a tremendous 27.3 PER (though it was MJ’s Bulls who won the title.) That same year, Olajuwon contended with a peaking Shawn Kemp and an otherworldly David Robinson in the Western Conference. Half the Western Conference posted an efficiency rating greater than average, and the next four were within .7 efficiency points of the average rating.
1992-93 PER by Center top 5 (WC)
Player | Team | PER |
Hakeem Olajuwon | Rockets | 27.3 |
David Robinson | Spurs | 24.2 |
Shawn Kemp | Sonics | 20.4 |
Clifford Robinson | Trail Blazers | 18.8 |
Dikembe Mutombo | Nuggets | 17.2 |
Vlade Divac | Lakers | 17.1 |
Not Olajuwon | Western Conference | 16.18 |
As an average, the centers and center/forwards Olajuwon competed against were better than average across the board. The competition was fierce and Olajuwon was at the top of the class, posting traditional stats of 28-11-3.5-3.5 (points-rebounds-assists-blocks) with a field goal percentage of 52%.
But the knock on Olajuwon in terms of criticisms also leveled against Dwight Howard is also in the strength of competition. In ‘92-93, there were only 13 teams in the Western Conference, and excluding the Rockets, only 12 teams to compete against. Traditionally, a condensed league means more talent, since there are less roster spots available for players. If we adjust the Conference average PER for an expanded conference like the NBA that Dwight Howard plays in, the conference average PER dips to 15.39, only slightly better than average across the board. Compared to Shaq’s best year, for example, it shows Olajuwon’s PER is worth four points less based on a single point of competition effectiveness, a rather large discrepancy in comparative talents.
DAVID ROBINSON
The one and only, The Admiral. Today he’s erroneously remembered by younger fans as the sidekick to Tim Duncan in the early years of the Spurs. Instead, David Robinson is one of the most statistically accomplished centers to ever play the game. He carried the Spurs year after year, a team that dropped to the lottery the one year Robinson was hurt (landing Duncan in the process.) He averaged 21 points a game for his career, and over 20 points for each of his first full seven seasons, with four year peak averages of 26.5-11.3-3.6-3.3, shooting 51% from the field and 76% from the charity stripe. That his NBA debut was at the age of 24 probably led to his numbers being at least a little lower than what they should have been, as his rookie year numbers were 24-11-2-4. He was a freakish athlete and played like one. During the 1993-94 season, Robinson averaged 29.8 points over 80 games on a 55 win Spurs team. His season PER was an astounding 30.7, tops in the league by two efficiency points over Shaq (played in Orlando at the time) and five points above Olajuwon. Here’s how the Western Conference centers stacked up against Robinson in terms of efficiency:
1993-94 PER by Center
Player | Team | PER |
David Robinson | Spurs | 30.7 |
Hakeem Olajuwon | Houston Rockets | 25.3 |
Shawn Kemp | Sonics | 22.9 |
Vlade Divac | Lakers | 18.8 |
Chris Gatling | Warriors | 18.7 |
Dikembe Mutombo | Nuggets | 17.9 |
Clifford Robinson | Trail Blazers | 17.4 |
A.C. Green | Suns | 17.0 |
Wayman Tisdale | Kings | 15.8 |
Sean Rooks | Mavericks | 14.6 |
Felton Spencer | Jazz | 11.7 |
Elmore Spencer | Clippers | 10.7 |
Mike Brown | T-Wolves | 7.2 |
Not the Admiral | Western Conference | 16.7 |
Of the three big years addressed, David Robinson faced the stiffest competition in terms of efficiency. The difference is the tougher competition, which, when adjusted for expansion, puts the Western Conference PER average at around 15.56. The number is close to Olajuwon’s, but the difference is Robinson was much more efficient than Olajuwon versus slightly better competition.
Of course, like Dwight Howard today, a look at Robinson’s competition shows a lot of hybrid forward/centers across the list. Half the guys on the list were four/fives, and most of those guys did not top 6’10”. Three of the bottom five in center PER in ’93-94 were true centers (Rooks and both Spencers.) For David Robinson, his best year was one where he was physically better than most everyone he lined up against. Sound familiar?
So how does Dwight Howard look based on efficiency, and how does he stack up to these three recent stars? Let’s isolate Dwight’s 2010-2011 season, his best one to date.
Howard posted traditional averages of 23-14-1.4-1.4. He shot 59% from the field and 60% from the line. His season’s PER was 26.2 unadjusted, tops in the league and in the Eastern Conference for Centers. Here’s how the rest of the conference stacked up in efficiency.
2010-11 PER value for Centers
Player | Team | Rating |
Dwight Howard | Magic | 26.2 |
Amare Stoudemire | Knicks | 24.3 |
Al Horford | Hawks | 20.7 |
Brook Lopez | Nets | 19.3 |
Joakim Noah | Bulls | 18.8 |
Greg Monroe | Pistons | 18.0 |
Javele McGee | Wizards | 17.4 |
Andrew Bogut | Bucks | 16.7 |
Andrea Bargnagni | Raptors | 16.2 |
Roy Hibbert | Pacers | 15.9 |
JJ Hickson | Cavaliers | 15.6 |
Glen Davis | Celtics | 14.0 |
Boris Diaw | Bobcats | 13.9 |
Spencer Hawes | 76ers | 13.2 |
Joel Anthony | Heat | 7.3 |
Not Howard | Eastern Conference | 16.5 |
Howard put together his best year in a very offensively gifted Eastern Conference. With 14 teams in the Conference, the proportional average to the most efficient seasons by Olajuwon and David Robinson actually suggests Howard faced stiffer offensive competition than the other three studied here. I say offensive because PER as a stat skews towards offense, which is why, for example, Andrea Bargnagni is considered an above-average efficient Center.
Still, unadjusted, the difference between the PER of Howard (26.2), Olajuwon (27.3), O’Neal (30.6) and Robinson (30.7) has a pretty big gap, with Robinson in 1993-94 being four points more efficient than Howard. If all of Dwight’s other numbers stack up, then what’s missing?
Simply put, the league changed. And that’s not in the criticizing Dwight sense, but just the focus of the league has changed from the big years posted by those other guys and where Dwight Howard plays now. What in the 90s was a league run through the post and the paint, now the league is dominated by guards. The best way to see this? Usage rate percentage.
Usage rate percentage is the amount of plays a team runs for a player over the course of a game. Let’s look at the usage rate career averages and season high (for the same seasons we used for PER) for the four centers we looked at.
Player | Usage Rate pct Career | URP season |
Hakeem Olajuwon | 27.1% | 28.8% |
David Robinson | 26.2% | 32.0% |
Shaquille O’Neal | 29.5% | 31.2% |
Dwight Howard | 23.5% | 27.2% |
As we can see, Dwight Howard’s usage rate for his career is low, while his most efficient season to this date comes in fourth on this list as well. But this also includes latter years of Olajuwon, O’Neal and Robinson’s careers. If we adjust the ratings to exclude obvious decline years, we get considerable new values.
Player | Adjusted URP Career |
Hakeem Olajuwon (1984-99) | 27.8% |
David Robinson (1989-99) | 28.2% |
Shaquille O’Neal (1992-07) | 30.5% |
With adjusted usage rate, it shows Dwight Howard is, to this point of his career, used considerably less than the other three guys, who all had their highest usage rates within the time frame of the up to date length of Dwight Howard’s career. Basically, Dwight Howard doesn’t get the ball enough to be as effective as centers in a center-dominated era did. To drive it home, consider the peak PER years of Olajuwon (’92-93), Robinson (’93-94) and Shaq in LA (’99-00):
1992-93 Usage pct.
Player | Usage Pct. |
Michael Jordan | 34.7 |
Dominique Wilkins | 31.9 |
Patrick Ewing | 29.7 |
Hakeem Olajuwon | 28.8 |
Karl Malone | 28.4 |
Danny Manning | 27.16 |
Shaquille O’Neal | 27.03 |
Clifford Robinson | 27.02 |
Charles Barkley | 26.9 |
John Starks | 26.5 |
1993-94 Usage Pct
Player | Usage Pct. |
David Robinson | 32.0 |
Dominique Wilkins | 32.0 |
Patrick Ewing | 29.8 |
Hakeem Olajuwon | 29.8 |
Shaquille O’Neal | 29.0 |
Karl Malone | 28.03 |
Alonzo Mourning | 27.33 |
Mitch Richmond | 27.21 |
Scottie Pippen | 27.11 |
John Starks | 27.05 |
1999-00 Usage pct
Player | Usage pct |
Allen Iverson | 34.4 |
Karl Malone | 31.9 |
Shaquille O’Neal | 31.2 |
Grant Hill | 30.5 |
Shawn Kemp | 30.2 |
Vince Carter | 29.96 |
Jerry Stackhouse | 29.19 |
Isaiah Rider | 28.81 |
Tim Duncan | 28.72 |
For Olajuwon and David Robinson, 7 out of the 10 players in the top 10 in usage rate were post players. For Shaq, at least 4 out of the 10 were. Now let’s look at the usage rate leaders around the league in Dwight Howard’s most efficient season:
2010-11 Usage Pct Leaders
Player | Usage pct. |
Kobe Bryant | 35.08 |
Derrick Rose | 32.18 |
Carmelo Anthony | 31.97 |
Dwyane Wade | 31.63 |
Russell Westbrook | 31.6 |
Lebron James | 31.50 |
Amare Stoudemire | 30.86 |
Kevin Durant | 30.65 |
Kevin Martin | 29.62 |
Michael Beasley | 28.3 |
Only one of those players can be considered a post player, in Amare Stoudemire, and none of them are Dwight Howard. Otherwise, you have five guards, three small forwards and a point forward in Lebron James. Essentially, today’s league just does not run through the post like it used to. In fact, since Dwight entered the league up until last season, 60 out of the 70 players who topped usage rates over that seven season span HAVE NOT been post players. Howard himself has never been in the top 10 of usage rate. For his career, Howard (23.5%) has a lower usage rate than Michael Beasley (27.0%)!
Which leads to this extraction: what if we adjusted Dwight Howard’s PER from 2010-11 in a usage rate proportionate to the three most efficient years of guys like Olajuwon, Robinson and Shaq in LA (average usage rate percentage in the years we covered=30.97)? Howard’s adjusted efficiency per usage rate would be 29.83, higher than Olajuwon and more in line with David Robinson and Shaquille O’Neal. For his career to this point, in a short sampling, if Dwight Howard played in the early 90s, he would be just as good as the leading centers of the era.
So what’s with all the criticism? It’s really three-fold. The first is Howard’s level of competition, which is an accurate concern, but not one Dwight Howard can control. As mentioned before, PER skews towards the offense, meaning Dwight Howard is playing against better offensive centers than others on a more consistent basis, meaning in turn, his player efficiency is not as affected by defensive centers as, say, Robinson or Olajuwon’s. But as it turns out, this puts greater value in Dwight Howard as an all around center. According to 82games.com, Dwight Howard reduces an opposing center’s efficiency to an 11.8 PER against. That means, on defense, Howard makes an opposing center 4.7 PER points lower than an average one in a league where the five is averaging greater offensive efficiency. For reference, last year he was turning Andrew Bogut into Louis Amundson.
The second is the perception that Howard doesn’t dominate as much as he should. But this is more a product of the league being guard-heavy rather than an indictment on Howard’s basketball ability/aggressiveness, as evidenced by his usage rate and the leaders in the category during Howard’s career. In fact, it could be suggested in terms of dependent stats like usage rate and unadjusted PER, that Dwight Howard in 2010-11 was maximizing his value as was allowed by his teammates. It’s not so much Howard doesn’t dominate as much as he should, but that Howard is starting to dominate as much as he could.
Lastly, there’s the success test. Basketball royalty is determined by champions, and no position is more dependent on rings for its GOAT list than the center spot. Look at the who’s who at the top, guys like Russell, Wilt and Kareem, who had the statistics and the titles. The other guys in this comparison all had rings as well. And while it’s real early in Howard’s career to bump him from any great center conversation for his lack of titles, the make up of the NBA today is not conducive to a dominant center ahead of his opposition physically like it was during the times of the other greats.
But the point of this exercise is this: statistically speaking, Dwight Howard is certainly on his way to being one of the greatest centers to play the game, regardless of who he plays against. Right now, we’re looking at the start of the prime years of Howard’s career, which when adjusted for usage, are on par with all-time great centers that have played the game right before him. If we spend too much time complaining how much better Dwight Howard should be, the statistics suggest we’ll run the risk of missing an all-time talent lay waste to the paint over the next half a decade.
Stats in this article were used from ESPN.com and John Hollinger, basketball-reference.com and 82games.com
Unadjusted PER used for this article were taken from basketball-reference.com
Adjusted PER is an updated version of Mr. Hollinger's stat which tries to minimize the effect of teammates on a player's efficiency rating. For Dwight Howard's defensive value, the PER figures used were adjusted, and taken from 82games.com. At the time of the publishing of this article, those values were unavailable for the seasons analyzed of Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal.
