Instagram/@dwighthoward
Dwight Howard created a frenzy at a Big3 game in Miami when he surprised everyone with an extremely rare triple threat. The ex-NBA star, whose main claim to fame is making banner ridiculous big plays in the history of basketball, hit several surprise outside shots that left the fans in awe and dumbfounded.
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The clip shows that Howard would step away from the arc for a while, shooting the ball from deep with great regularity; quite a turnaround from his NBA days when he made only 22 three-pointers out of 88 attempts in over 18 years, with a lowly 25-percent shooting percentage. His new entity as a shooter promptly put social media into frenzies.
One basketball fan wrote, ‘Soon as the bigs leave the league they become shooters man.’ The comment sparked off a lengthy discussion: NBA roles versus player skills. Others responded how many bigmen can shoot but never get to use those skills in professional systems: ‘He been could shoot bro they just made him stick to his role,’ implying that professional systems force players into roles regardless of what others might be in fact within their skill set.
The discussion morphed into continental philosophies of basketball: “Coaches & system in America limit bigs. If an American big plays like a European they will call him soft,” and so on about the developmental systems across continents. Others countered with, at the NBA level, being dependable in reality trumps allocating shot attempts based on potential.
Howard has been shooting threes all over his social media accounts, raising questions with the comment: “Now all of a sudden Dwight hitting jumpers like he’s KG??? Where was this when he was in Orlando/LA/ATL?” Anly were answered by reasons ranging from a conspiracy about team denial to instances in personal development. Another fan responded, “He said LA told him he couldn’t shoot 3s, even if he was open,” implying that the coaching staff in the NBA actively discouraged Howard from attempting three-pointers.
The comment stirred up some hilarity when one user said, ‘Why they keep saying “White Power” every time he score?’ with the quick response from others, “They saying Dwight Howard,” although a few confessed that they still couldn’t shake off the former.”
The discussion spilled off the hard wood and into Howard’s nonexistence in the NBA. A few speculations were offered, with one speculating about Howard and age-related decline his employment record being fairly good, while more controversial were hints towards a political angle being the real reason for his long stint of unemployment.
Still showing he can compete at a good level for now, albeit with a very different look than back in his prime, says Big3 is the entertainment and the talk of player development and NBA systems and how athletes develop their games in different competitive environments. It’s something every basketball aficionado will be talking about, whether this is gonna be a genuine evolution of Howard’s game or, at minimum, a reflection that the Big3 is a little lax.
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Howard hitting outside shots behind-the-back was a catalyst for a myriad of issues in basketball culture, from positional stereotypes to league politics. The veteran big man may have faded from NBA-dominance years ago, but he is reminding everyone that drama about his game can still be contrived, albeit more from outside than inside the arc these days.