Who is Dwight Howard?
Is he an MVP candidate who can almost single-handedly anchor a top-ranked defense? Is he an aging, 6-foot-11 center with a back injury that has sapped his otherworldly athleticism?
Or, is he something else?
Howard's decision to leave the Los Angeles Lakers for the Houston Rockets this past summer completely shifted the balance of power in the Western Conference. But after back surgery and turning in a sub-20 player efficiency rating (PER) for the first time in six seasons, not to mention the nagging turmoil that shadowed his every movement in L.A., which guy did the Rockets get for their $88 million?
Based on a half a season worth of data, whoever he is, he doesn't look like an elite player anymore.
Howard on offense
There's a strong case to be made that Howard has been the league's best offensive center this season. No starting 5-man in the league has been better in terms of both usage (.250) and efficiency (.593 true shooting percentage --TS%). In fact, none of the four centers who have been a larger part of their team's offense has better than a .548 TS%. So when the two metrics are combined based on the typical relationship between usage and efficiency, Chris Bosh and Howard are tied for the top spot among centers in adjusted TS%.
It's surprising, in that context, that Howard's shooting from the field (58.2 percent on 2-pointers) is virtually the same as it was in a Lakers uniform last season (58.1 percent), as well as his final season in Orlando (57.9 percent). Though Howard has doubled his career high in 3-pointers (all the way to two), the difference is entirely at the charity stripe.
After back-to-back seasons making less than half of his free throws, Howard is back up to 54.6 percent this season. Because he shoots so many free throws, that difference is enough to improve his TS% from .575 based on last year's foul shooting to his actual .593 mark.
As good as he has looked down low at times this season, Howard remains one of the league's most inefficient post scorers. According to Synergy Sports Technology, his 0.762 points per post-up ranks 22nd among the 24 players with at least 200 post-up plays. Howard's still-poor free throw shooting brings that figure down, but during his 2010-11 campaign -- when he finished second in MVP voting -- Howard made 50.3 percent of his shots off post-ups, as compared with 45.3 percent this season.
The good news for Houston is that Howard has improved over the course of the year. Visibly, Howard's footwork looks better than ever. Two months ago, he was averaging just 0.724 points per post-up. Since then, Howard has had stretches of dominant play reminiscent of his prime with the Orlando Magic. During five February games, all of them Rockets wins, Howard has averaged 25.8 points on 65.7 percent shooting.
Howard on defense
It's amazing how quickly Howard has slipped from an annual Defensive Player of the Year lock to entirely out of the discussion about the league's top defenders. It's unclear from the numbers how much that's deserved. Howard isn't blocking shots as frequently as before -- his rate is his lowest since 2005-06, when he was still playing power forward at age 20 -- but his defensive impact has generally exceeded his blocks per game.
Last year, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry coined "The Dwight Effect" for opponents' unwillingness to shoot at the rim against Howard. In Goldsberry's data set, which covered games in arenas with SportVU player tracking during the 2011-12 season and part of 2012-13, opponents shot 45.7 percent within five feet of the basket when Howard was within five feet of them. This year, full SportVU data shows opponents shooting 47.4 percent in at-rim attempts with Howard in proximity of them -- solidly above average, but outside the league's top 20 big men.
Whether it's because opponents no longer fear Howard or because of the Rockets' iffy perimeter defense, the deterrent effect Howard once had no longer exists. Opposing teams have attempted shots at the rim at a league-average rate against Houston, per NBA.com/Stats.
Still, the Rockets' shot defense has improved dramatically. They've gone from 16th in opponents' effective field-goal percentage last season with Omer Asik in the middle to fifth so far this year. The shortcomings in Houston's ninth-ranked defense -- bottom-10 rankings in defensive rebounding and forcing turnovers -- aren't Howard's departments. In particular, don't blame him for the team's weak board work. The Rockets are average on the glass with Howard on the court, and drop to what would be the league's worst defensive rebound rate when he's on the bench.
Together, Howard's defensive numbers suggest he's good, but no longer elite, at that end of the floor.
Where Howard ranks
So where does that leave Howard overall? It's tough for any center in the league to match his combination of offense and defense. While Roy Hibbert of the Indiana Pacers has supplanted Howard as the NBA's top defensive player, Hibbert is a far less efficient scorer.
The same is true of other top defensive centers, while the best scorers (including DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings) are weaker than Howard defensively. In terms of performance at both ends, Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah might have the best case to counter Howard -- he rates slightly better by the per-minute component of my WARP system, but Howard is far better in terms of PER.
In 2014, the best center in the NBA is no longer automatically one of the league's top 10 players. The advanced metrics tend to agree that Howard belongs in the next group of 10. He ranks 19th by both PER and Win Shares, and 14th by WARP.
Howard has improved from last season, even as compared to his healthier second half, and now looks more like the explosive All-NBA First-Teamer he was in Orlando. But the Houston organization probably has to resign itself to the fact that at age 28 and following back surgery, Howard has probably already played his best basketball. That's not to say the Rockets should regret their pursuit of Howard in the least. Pairing him with another top-20 star in James Harden already has made the Rockets a fringe championship contender, and GM Daryl Morey has time to continue to shape the roster around its two anchors. Even a lesser Howard was well worth the effort Houston made to sign him away from the Lakers.