CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER THIRTEEN Dwight Howard spent the summer of 2007 in the weight room, on the basketball court, and with friends and family. In late August, he played in the FIBA Americas Championship in Las Vegas, an Olympic qualifying series that ended with Team USA going undefeated in all ten matches. Dwight did his part, averaging 10 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.
The Magic, meanwhile, were just as busy. In early June, they hired a new coach, Stan Van Gundy. Van Gundy made some roster changes and brought in former NBA great Patrick Ewing as his assistant coach.
First and foremost on Ewing’s list of responsibilities was to help Dwight Howard with his shooting. Howard was an expert dunker—in 2006–2007, he’d made more dunks than any other player in the league—but he wasn’t very skilled in other shots.
“What kind of player do you want to be?” Ewing asked Howard soon after they started working together.
“The greatest,” was Dwight’s reply.
“Then you have to put in the work,” Ewing told him.
And that’s just what Howard did. He practiced running jumpers, hook shots, fadeaways, and layups. He shot them over and over with the goal of making the movement instinctive. That way, when the shot presented itself during a game, he would be ready to make it.
“I really like Patrick a lot. He’s done so much with me already in the time that we’ve been together,” he said of his mentor. “I can’t wait to spend a whole season with him. I wish he could be here (in Orlando) until I’m finished playing.”
The effect of Ewing’s tutelage shone through in the Magic’s first preseason game. In just twenty-nine minutes of play, Howard hit 13 of 20 shots from the floor, 4 of which were jump shots. The rest of his game was just as impressive: 11 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, 1 steal, and 1 assist. He also made 4 out of 6 free throws. Unfortunately, his hard work went to waste; Orlando lost the game 94–93 to the Atlanta Hawks.
That was their only loss of the seven-game preseason, however. The regular season opener was another victory for the Magic, thanks to strong shooting from their newest player, Rashard Lewis, who put in 26 of Orlando’s 102 points. Lewis credited Howard with helping him reach that number, saying the other team was so worried about keeping an eye on Dwight that they often left other players open.
Dwight, too, had a fine opening match, with 16 points, 12 rebounds, and 7 blocks in thirty-one minutes on the court. “To not even play in the fourth quarter and end up with 12 rebounds and 7 blocks is unbelievable,” coach Van Gundy said.
At the end of November, Dwight reached a new personal best of 39 points in one game. Eighteen of those points came from massive dunks, raising his season total to 73. That was more than twice as many dunks as any other player—and more than many teams had made as a whole! Two nights later, he made 30 points and he ripped down 23 rebounds for a league-high fifteenth double-double and his second career 30-20 game.
Yet Howard would have traded it all in if only the game had ended in a win. Instead, the Magic lost to the Phoenix Suns 110–106 to finish with a record of 14 and 4.
After such a strong start, the Magic faltered in December. They had a pair of wins for a franchise-best record of 16–4, but then dropped three before defeating the Charlotte Bobcats. Dwight was a big reason they won that game. He had 33 points, 18 rebounds, and 4 blocks.
Yet not all was right with his performance. He was still struggling at the foul line. Eight of ten free throws were misses that night, leaving him frustrated.
“I don’t know what was going on tonight,” he said after the game. “I was shooting them hard, shooting them soft… [trying] to make my free throws as best as I could.”
Nearly every other part of his game was going wonderfully, however. On December 28, at twenty-two years and twenty days old, he hit 29 points and pulled down 21 rebounds. It was the tenth 20-20 game of his career. Only Shaquille O’Neal had reached that milestone at a younger age.
The Magic chalked up their twenty-second victory on New Year’s Eve with an edge-of-the-seat overtime win over the Chicago Bulls. The game might not have gone into extra minutes if not for the heads-up play of the Magic’s star center-forward.
The score was 96–94 in Chicago’s favor with thirty-eight seconds showing on the clock. The Bulls’ shooting guard Ben Gordon had control when suddenly, zip! Out of nowhere, Dwight had stolen the ball! He fired it quickly to Jameer Nelson, who went up for a shot. Slap! Gordon fouled Nelson, sending him to the line for two free throws. Nelson hit both, and the score was tied!
Dwight was nearly the hero again in the last second of regulation time. With the score still knotted, he went up for a layup—but missed! Luckily, he nabbed his own rebound just as the clock ran out. Then Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu pushed the Magic ahead in overtime for the win.
Dwight had 17 points, 22 boards, 5 blocked shots, and 3 steals, including that key rebound of the game’s end, that night. His coach called his effort “tremendous,” a word that could also have been used to describe Howard’s overall performance so far. He had improved in most categories since the same time the previous year. In December of 2006, he had averages of 16.8 points, 11.4 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks; now he had 21.7 points, 16.1 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks.
Two or more baskets per game from one player can mean the difference between a win and a loss. Dwight’s extra points were definitely contributing to the Magic’s winning season.
“If you make just a pretty good pass [to Dwight], he’s going to do something alien with it, something out of this world,” marveled his teammate Carlos Arroyo.
Spurred by Dwight’s play, the team ended 2007 with 22 wins, up from 18 the previous season. By the All-Star break in February 2008, they had increased their victories to 33, while dropping just 21 games total. It was their best record in years and had many sports followers predicting good things for them come playoff time.
But that was several weeks away, and in mid-February Dwight had his mind on just one thing: the Slam Dunk contest.