Los Angeles Lakers: Three players that need to step it up in the preseason
By Jason Reed
3. Dwight Howard
Dwight Howard is battling for the starting center role with JaVale McGee and right now, Howard is losing that battle and is likely going to end up on the bench. It ultimately might not matter that much, as they will get similar playing time, but Howard has to be better than he has been if he is going to make a noticeable impact on this team.
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Howard has not even been that bad if you are looking at the parts of the box score that concern him: points and rebounds. He has not been great in that regard, but in the limited minutes he has had in the preseason, he has not been bad.
Howard is averaging 5.6 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in 17.3 minutes per game. That is not that bad considering that he has made six of his 10 field goals through three games.
However, he has made some boneheaded mistakes and that shows up on the box score. Despite not handling the ball as much as a guard, Howard has eight turnovers in three games. That is as many turnovers as Anthony Davis and LeBron James have combined and they handle the ball much more than Howard.
His +/- also is not that great, although that cannot be pinned solely on him as that is a team stat, in a sense. Howard is -6 in three games with the only positive game coming in the win against the Golden State Warriors.
He is going to be just fine as a veteran bench center with those numbers. But if he wants to take that extra step and prove that he is a difference-maker for this team then he is going to have to be better.
How the bench minutes should be distributed. dark. Next
The Los Angeles Lakers can walk away from this partnership at any time, which does put a little more pressure on Howard. They are not going to walk away after three preseason games but they do need to see more out of him to be fully comfortable entering the regular season.