Dwight David Howard was born in Atlanta in December 1985, coming into this world on his own schedule, two months prematurely.
His growth, apparently, was not stunted. In fact, you’ve never set eyes on a more convincing advertisement for the quality of a region’s postnatal care.
More currently, however, he presents his hometown with a conundrum.
Here is Howard, one of the more dynamic athletes to hail from here — on par with an Evander Holyfield (born in Alabama, but reared in Atlanta) or a Walt Frazier, if not quite yet enjoying the mythic status of a Bobby Jones.
And yet with every playoff game against the Hawks, Howard is morphing more into a local nemesis, along the lines of a Jim Leyritz, a Kent Hrbek or a Juan Antonio Samaranch.
Friday the Hawks-Orlando Magic series came to Philips Arena, bringing with it the unthinkable: Howard being booed even more lustily than J.J. Redick.
An entire promotions department has been sicced upon him. Friday’s monochromatic theme was declared a “Dwight Out,” while constant allusions to kryptonite were waved in the face of the player nicknamed “Superman.”
“You have to expect that. You expect fans to boo us and cheer for their team. That’s what they’re supposed to do. You have to play through all that,” Howard said late Friday night.
The Magic center, by way of tiny Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, stands as the single largest — 6-foot-11, 265 pounds to be exact — obstacle between the Hawks and Round 2 of these NBA playoffs.
Against the Hawks, Howard has been a transcendent force, playing all but five of 144 minutes of the first three games, despite a rotation of Hawks big men hanging from him like anchor chains. His scoring has dropped with each game (46 to 33 to 21), yet within this star-laden postseason, he entered Saturday ranked first in scoring (33.3 per game), rebounding (17.7 per game) and minutes per game (46).
Orlando so needs him on the floor that his coach, Stan Van Gundy said, “It’s very hard to even let him get a drink of water.” He is a soloist, the Yo-Yo Ma of post play, while Orlando aches to hear from the rest of the orchestra.
Game 4 of the best-of-seven series looms Sunday at Philips — the Hawks up 2-1 and the stage set for further friction. Hawks center Zaza Pachulia came out of Game 3 on Friday looking as if he had spent the evening locked in a cage with an angry wolverine, scratches covering one arm. Howard has banked two postseason technical fouls already, both of them involving Pachulia. He flung the Hawks’ backup big man to the court in Game 1, and on Friday flailed at Pachulia after a hard foul, catching him across the neck.
Howard argued that Friday’s play was not T-worthy. Pachulia referred questioners to their televisions. “You can see it 3-D now — maybe even feel it, too,” he said.
One could sense that Howard wanted to also lash out verbally against Pachulia — a gifted provocateur — following Friday’s game, but couldn’t quite take the leap. Asked what the Hawks center does to get under his skin, Howard just said, “He’s a pretty good defender,” before looking away and giving a dismissive smile.
Another time, when addressing the altercation that resulted in the expulsion and subsequent suspension of Pachulia and Jason Richardson, Howard stopped himself in mid-sentence with a “never mind, I can’t talk about Zaza.”
The waters are terribly muddied now and will not clear by 7 p.m. Sunday. Howard at least did pay notice to the passion that he and his teammates have helped bring out in the Hawks’ fan base.
Of the racket Friday inside Philips he said, “It was fun regardless of whether the crowd was against us or not. That’s how it was when I used to come to games back way in the day when Hawks were in playoffs. That was good to see that, but we got to take care of business in Game Four.”
The etiquette for the treatment of a hometown guy bent on eliminating the hometown team is fuzzy. Another locally made NBA player says it is quite all right to let Howard hear it.
“Go right ahead [and boo him],” said the Hawks’ Josh Smith, Howard’s friend from childhood. “He’s not home until the season’s over with.”
The gentle headmistress at Southwest Atlanta Christian, Geraldine Thompson, however, can not conceive of such blaspheme from her people. “We still support him because he is still a big supporter of the school. I don’t think people here could root against him,” she said last week.
Other cities have had no problem casting Howard as the villain. He is an obvious target, the highest point drawing the most lightning.
Inspired to some sensational hyperbole by Howard’s rough play, one Boston Herald scribe wrote a column during last year’s conference final advocating violent vengeance by the Celtics. Over the column blared the headline: “Take Him Out.” And not in the “let’s get an iced frappuchino, my treat” interpretation of the phrase.
Howard’s style naturally incites an already hostile audience. You could call him a bull-in-a-Best Buy, if bulls had elbows and used them like nunchucks.
Howard takes a beating, as opposing big men who can stop him no other way thwack and hack and try to send him to the free-throw line without the use of at least one limb. In response, Howard fights back, sometimes blatantly, other times subversively.
Nor does he suffer quietly. He led the NBA in technical fouls this season, with 18, a total that twice cost him one-game suspensions.
As well as his disagreements with Pachulia, Howard and Jason Collins have routinely gotten crossways. In Game 1, Howard flung himself backward in order to deliver an inventive reverse head-butt to Collins. In Game 3, he plowed into him with such force on an offensive foul that Collins had to retreat briefly to the Hawks’ locker room to treat an aching tailbone.
“He’s got me not only with elbows, he’s gotten me with the head butt, and I want to say it was a fist. I don’t know what he hit me with, something like back of his hand got me,” Collins said.
“You know after the game you’re going to need a lot of ice packs.”
Another reason that Hawks fans can focus displeasure upon Howard is that unlike the 2010 postseason, where he was just another bristle in the broom that swept the Hawks, the Magic center this year has been their only reliable performer on the floor.
Howard is a different player from even a year ago, more skilled around the basket — and he’s even making 68 percent of his free throws.
“He’s obviously big and strong and uses both hands very well,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said. “He has gotten better with his footwork. I don’t know if anybody in the league can defend him heads-up, completely shut him down. He’s just too powerful, he’s too big.”
Departing from predecessor Mike Woodson’s strategy, Drew this postseason has chosen to match up singly on Howard, rather than double him at the expense of freeing up one of Orlando’s outside shooters.
Smith utilizes some nice imagery in explaining the strategy: “We can’t get discouraged with the amount of plays he makes and the amount of shots he takes; we just got to be able to cut off everybody’s else’s water.”
The adjustment has put the Hawks in a much better position than a year ago, while at the same time allowing Howard the chance to show that a three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year is transitioning into an all-around elite player.
Van Gundy has said of his star, “On a national level, I think people realize he’s good, but for some reason it doesn’t translate into people thinking of him at the same level as Kobe Bryant, LeBron James or Dwyane Wade.”
This series may be doing its part to upgrade Howard’s status. And Atlanta may well join the rest of the nation in appreciating the great strides one of its own has made in his chosen profession. Next season.
