Juwan Howard. Bringing him in was H-U-G-E. I was at the game last night and my seats are by the Blazers bench. After Oden picked up his 2nd foul off of a BS call, and a time out was called Juwan Howard confronted I believe Joey Crawford. He did it one more time later in the game, and from that point on Oden was given a little bit of a longer leash. Having a vet stand up for the big guy when our coach won't I think he is a huge piece to our season because if Greg can play like he did yesterday, we can win a lot of games. Another thing I saw from Juwan, was how much Greg respects him. After GO got called for his 3rd or 4th foul, he came out and showed him what he was doing when he got the foul called. Howard showed him how to get out of the arm lock or something like that and GO nodded and sat down. A lot of people are still saying we need a big man coach, and sure Jabbar or Ewing or someone would be great, but Juwan Howard WAS one hell of a player as well and I think Greg can and has already learned a lot from him.
I noticed several times Juwan was huddling the guys up before they went out on the floor and talking to them about stuff. The guy has a very good basketball IQ, I wish he could get more playing time. But there are only so many minute to go around. He should definitly get the backup center minutes once Joel and Oden get into foul trouble, instead of running Aldridge at the 5.
Yeah, that was great to see Juwan really involved in the game. He was coaching a bit, he was cheering the guys on, he just had a presence even though he didn't really play outside of 1 minute. The guys respect him a ton, and I'm glad we have him around. He'll see some PT sometime this year, but I'm happy he's accepted his role as sort of a mentor to the young guys.
I don't know if you can say Juwan is making the difference, but it sure as hell couldn't hurt having a guy like that in Greg's ear.
