How Howard vs. Noah has become an All-NBA debate
While the endless LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant MVP debate has slightly cooled this week, a new debate has been propped up.
Between the bonus Joakim Noah would receive for being named an All-NBA First Team center this season (a bonus which would send the Bulls into luxury tax territory), his magical playmaking for a big man and his bursting into the non-LeBron, non-Durant MVP discussion, not to mention Rockets coach Kevin McHale proclaiming him the Defensive Player of the Year ahead of his own Dwight Howard, the debate of the week has become Noah vs. Howard.
That they matched up on Thursday night in a meeting of two of the league's hottest teams only fueled the fire. And looking at the numbers doesn't exactly separate the two.
Howard has averaged 18.6 points, 12.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.8 blocks for one of the six best teams in the league, and he's the type of physically dominant big man Noah just wasn't built to be, especially from an interior scoring standpoint. But Noah has averaged 12.2 points, 11.3 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.1 steals as the unquestionable leader (on both ends of the court) of a surging Bulls team, and Howard will never possess the same dynamic playmaking ability.
Noah is the driving force behind the league's No. 2 defense, while Howard has somehow managed to turn a team stocked with defensive liabilities on the perimeter into a top-10 unit, and it's scary to think about the defensive damage he could do under Tom Thibodeau, with defensive running mates like Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson and even Kirk Hinrich.
Dwight got the best of Joakim in Houston a few months ago, but Joakim repaid the favor last night in Chicago.
Taking the debate to the advanced metrics* delivers the same split decision:
| Player | PER | PIE | Win Shares | RAPM | On/off net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dwight Howard | 21.63 | 14.6 | 7.7 | 2.7 | 4.9 |
| Joakim Noah | 19.88 | 15.5 | 8.3 | 1.3 | 6.9 |
Right now, the argument can probably be made that Howard is the better player while Noah has been the more valuable to his team, but even that seems flimsy in its unfairness to both Noah's natural abilities and Howard's value to the Rockets.
This is the type of classic NBA debate that can rage on for days, weeks, months and even years into the future, and that's quite alright. For now, we can simply take some pleasure in the fact that there's another player vs. player debate and another award race (All-NBA First Team center) to monitor, discuss and ultimately get excited about as we come down the home stretch of another NBA season.
It might not be LeBron James vs. Kevin Durant, but Dwight Howard vs. Joakim Noah is still certainly worth our time.
*PER=ESPN's Player Efficiency Rating
PIE= NBA.com's Player Impact Estimate
Win Shares from Basketball Reference
RAPM= Regularized Adjusted Plus/Minus
On/off net=The difference between a team's point-differential per 48 minutes with a player on the court versus off the court