Dwight Howard is nothing if not a workhorse basketball player. The first overall pick in 2004, he went on to have a dominant career in the NBA. Eight-time all-star, five-time all-NBA first team, a championship in 2020. Furthermore, his defense was truly elite. He won back-to-back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards and made four all-defensive first teams. Add in an Olympic gold medal and a host of other accolades and you have a first-ballot Hall of Famer right there.
However, Howard isn’t technically retired. Starting in 2022, Howard has been playing in the Taiwanese League. At the end of his first season, he had captured an all-star nod and Most Valuable Import. He also earned first-team honors for both the league as a whole and all-defense. However, Howard is now making some bold claims about Nikola Jokić.
Howard Claims Better Prime Than Jokic
Howard went off while speaking to Complex. "Obviously, people going to say Jokić can score. He got all those offensive skills. But at the same time, I was getting 38 and 20, 45-18, 19, 20, and I'm doing all this with twos. No threes, all twos. I'm doing this with lobs. I'm not getting a lot of post-up attempts like Jokic. He's getting way more opportunities I would say. And I was just in a different era. So, people look at that and say, "Well, Jokić, he scores and does all this stuff." And no offense, I think he's great. I love Jokić, I don't want people to think that I'm trying to hate even comparing, but I'm going to take myself. I know how dominant I was and I know what I could do with my skills. And on the defensive end and on the offensive end I was quick enough to get past everybody."
He continued. "So, I didn't necessarily have to use skill moves and stuff like that all the time to score. I use my speed a lot, I use power to finesse or sometimes speed to finish with power. I just had an array of different things but people just remember seeing me dunk the ball on people's head. And I love Jokić and I'm happy for him. I think he's one of the best centers that ever played the game on basketball. [But] I'm Dwight Howard. I know what I've done in this league." At the time of writing, Howard has 19485 points (55th) and 10476 rebounds (10th). Jokić has 12054 points (273rd) and 6273 rebounds (165th).
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