Eight hours before tipoff last Monday, the coach was calmly detailing how he pushes and prods his budding star, a coltish player with infinite potential, toward becoming the standard by which contemporary N.B.A. big men are measured.
“He tells me, ‘I play better relaxed and smiling,’ ” Magic Coach Stan Van Gundy said of Dwight Howard, his affable center. “We point out to him, factually, that that’s not true. He doesn’t have to play angry, just serious and focused all the time.”
That night, after an unusually lackadaisical outing by Howard, punctuated by a rare it’s-all-about-me utterance in a team huddle, Van Gundy sounded off.
“He was walking up and down the court, not making a great effort,” Van Gundy said in the post-mortem of a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. “The numbers show he needs to be focused on defense and rebounding. But that’s not what he wants to do, so we have a little bit of a conflict.”
Such is life in the N.B.A. for Howard, a just-turned-22 prodigy generating stratospheric expectations.
A seven-day stretch that began with the first calling-out by his coach in three and a half professional seasons will end Sunday with his first start in the N.B.A. All-Star Game.
Van Gundy wants to make the most of the talents of Howard, a 6-foot-11 former No. 1 overall draft pick who is ambidextrous and has trampoline hops, a body by Wilt the Stilt, charisma by Cedric the Entertainer and a work ethic that has allowed him to play 304 games, including playoffs, without an absence.
“I’ve just got to play harder,” Howard said. “I can’t worry about getting touches.”
He added, “I have to be the person who steps up every night on both ends of the floor.”
Van Gundy said: “His basic nature is, coming to practice and the game, he wants to have fun. Come out and laugh and joke. What your off-the-court personality is doesn’t have to be your on-the-court personality.”
So he conducts math class with Howard: you score more points in losses than victories; your team is 33-21 over all, but 22-3 in games when you block at least three shots.
“I’m cognizant how young he is,” said Van Gundy, who made Howard a co-captain. “We’re not down on him. I just want to see him being the dominant player of his generation. He’s still got a long way to go in his development, which is scary — if you’re another team.
“I wouldn’t have any problem if, whenever I leave Orlando, he hated me. What I don’t want is to hear him say is, ‘Coach didn’t push me enough.’ ”
Howard said he aspired to become the premier back-to-the-basket player in N.B.A. annals.
“I’m playing not just against my opponent but against the ones who played before me — Chamberlain, Russell, Willis Reed,” he said. “I want to be where those guys are at the end of my career.”
In his fourth season, he stands first in rebounds, double-doubles and dunks, fourth in field-goal percentage and fifth in blocked shots. He has twice been the player of the month.
“He’s having a fantastic year,” said Patrick Ewing, a Magic assistant.
Although Ewing said Howard needed to improve his free-throw shooting and his passing out of a double-team, he added: “Dwight amazes me at what he can do. He can be as good as he’d like to be.”
Ewing said that Howard could be “one of the best ever to play the game.”
Howard pledged upon entering the league to polish the perception of the play-for-millions player by sharing his Christian beliefs, even persuading Commissioner David Stern to add a cross to the league’s logo.
He has scaled back somewhat by confining religious sales pitches only to willing players one on one, although he does lead locker room prayers. Graded on the N.B.A. behavioral curve, Howard has been angelic.
His winning smile and strait-laced ways have attracted a growing fan following. In All-Star balloting, he received the third-most votes in the East despite playing in the relatively obscure outpost of Orlando and having limited appeal among an electorate that seems drawn to tattooed rapper wannabes. His jersey ranks 14th in the league in sales. The value of his Adidas shoe contract, another gauge of acceptance, is among the most lucrative at $36 million over six years.
Howard is a community pillar, eager to address youth and church groups or lend a charitable hand.
More than the face of the franchise, he is its embodiment — larger than life on billboards, and on the sides of buses that display his wingspan, each hand cupping a wheel.
Rather than holing up in his 17,000-square-foot home, he goes to the movies and strolls through malls. His autograph, accompanied by the phrase “God bless,” is always available upon request.
Howard’s modest number of endorsements is attributable to the area where he plays and the Magic’s absence from the postseason, said Doug Shabelman, the president of Burns Entertainment and Sports Marketing in Chicago.
“It’s really tough to find a better class of guy to expose your product,” Shabelman said. “Another impediment for him is big men tend to have a tougher time with marketing.”
He added, “A lot of companies would love to have a guy like Dwight on their team.”
With a five-year, $85 million contract, Howard is not immune to excess. His garage holds eight vehicles, his favorite being a Rolls-Royce. Forbidden to shoot a gun during childhood by his father, Dwight Sr., a Georgia state trooper, Howard now owns “a collection of artillery,” as he phrased it.
At the same time, when he finds himself straying from his spiritual core, Howard often forgoes simple pleasures “to get me closer to God.” His current sacrifices are pop music and candy. “Skittles, Snickers — that’s hard for me to give up,” he said.
Yet a year ago, Howard conceived an unplanned child with a former Magic dancer. Their son, Braylon Joshua Robert Howard, was born Nov. 18.
“It’s a great feeling,” Howard said of fatherhood, although he does not live with Braylon’s mother.
“I’m not Jesus,” he added. “You make a mistake, it’s about how you deal with it.”
Although is it common enough for N.B.A. players to have children out of wedlock, Magic management is skittish about Howard’s case.
Pat Williams, a senior vice president and the author of books about character, said, “Dwight seems to be handling it the right way, and that’s all I can say about that.”
The impact on Howard’s image is uncertain. A magazine about Christian athletes canceled a scheduled article about him. Yet random interviews with fans at Amway Arena indicated that no harm has been done.
“Everybody in Orlando loves him,” said Tracy Williams, whose 8-year-old son, Tyron, was wearing Howard’s No. 12 jersey at his first game. “You don’t see him out in the streets, hanging at clubs.”
Reared in a strict, loving household, Howard and his two siblings did not observe Christmas in the gift-swapping, tree-decorating sense because his parents said such rituals distorted the holiday’s true meaning. Nor did they partake of Halloween, citing its pagan overtones.
So Howard, mature in many ways, is catching up on his childhood. He tucks presents under tinseled, brightly lighted trees and dons scary masks to greet trick-or-treaters. As a rookie, he pulled on an Afro wig — as the 1970s Dwight Howard — and knocked on doors for the first time in search of Skittles and Snickers.
Although his cinematic tastes are eclectic, Howard’s longtime favorite has been “Finding Nemo.” His impressions of cartoon characters and N.B.A. personalities are impressive.
The entire package is endearing, even to Van Gundy. After chastising Howard on Monday, Van Gundy told reporters: “We’ll get him there. He’s a high-character guy.”
Two nights later, Howard amassed 24 rebounds in a victory over the Denver Nuggets and helped limit Marcus Camby to 6 points.
So the coach will continue to push and prod while dangling the carrot. And the player will continue to reach for it, no questions asked.
“I am happy with what I’ve done so far,” Howard said. “Where I want to be is nowhere near where I am now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/sports/basketball/17howard.html?ref=sports
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