Will Dwight Howard or Another NBA Big Man Be the Next to Break a Backboard?

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Throughout NBA history, the names synonymous with breaking backboards are without a doubt Darryl Dawkins and Shaquille O'Neal. Those two guys were so strong and explosive that it seems like they could bring down the rim any time they wanted, and in some cases, that was true.

Back when Chocolate Thunder was throwing down the The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam-I-Am Jam (which is what he called his backboard-breaking dunk), he was so good at doing it (he broke two backboards in a month) that the league threatened to fine him if he did it again.

Now, Dawkins shattering the glass was impressive enough, but Shaq seemed to one-up him early on in his career when he completely brought down the entire backboard, sending it flopping down on top of his head.

There's no doubt that Shaq and Dawkins were freakishly strong guys, but they had something else that was hard to pinpoint, a sort of explosiveness that very few players in the league have these days.

So what does that mean for the future of backboard breaking with the stronger, more reinforced backboards that exist today? Who has a shot at bringing the rim down and bursting their way back into history?

While it's unlikely (with how scarce a broken backboard is), there are some players who do have the tools to do it. So here are the odds for the strongest players in the league to be the next guy to bring that bad boy down.

9. Samardo Samuels

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On the surface, a guy like Samardo Samuels doesn't seem like he holds great chance of bringing any doom to a backboard when you consider how young he is and how hard he'll have to work to stay in the league, but he is one strong young gun.

Samuels has a build similar to that of Darryl Dawkins (6'9", 260 pounds) and that explosive type of strength that comes with a young fellow.

8. Kendrick Perkins

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Kendrick Perkins main job on the floor is to be a big, strong, intimidating center that does whatever he can to stop the ball from going in the basket on defense. On offense, his goal is to hang down around the hoop and slam home any stray ball he can get his mitts on (63 percent of his shots are around the rim).

Beyond that, he's one of the biggest guys in the league, standing at 6'10" and weighing in at 270 pounds.

Get the big fellow angry, and he can channel all of his energy into a monstrous, rim-rattling dunk that makes the entire gym rumble.

7. DeMarcus Cousins

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DeMarcus Cousins has that power that comes from deep down inside that emerges in a storm of fury when he gets riled up.

At 6'11" and 270 pounds, he's definitely a guy with potential to bring down a backboard. Combine his size with his youthful athleticism and intensity, and it makes him a pretty good candidate to cost the league a few grand in backboard repairs.

6. DeAndre Jordan

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As one of the Los Angeles Clippers' two exciting young big men poised to stick around the league for a long time, DeAndre Jordan will have plenty of chances to attack the rim with all the force and ferocity that we think he can.

Even now, as he seems a bit skinny for his frame (I swear it looks like he can still add some weight and be as athletic), Jordan is a monster of a man with a body hell-bent for destruction.

With all the dunks that happen throughout the course of a Clippers game these days, it's not that far-fetched to think of Jordan as the next guy who could bring the rim to the ground with him.

5. Dexter Pittman

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Here's a guy that gets very little playing time down in Miami (he's played in just nine games this season so far) but is so big and so strong that he might be able to break the rim while sitting on the bench.

Pittman is the heaviest player in the league right now at 308 pounds, but he's trimmed down a ton over the years—he came out of high school weighing nearly 400 pounds.

Even with all of that weight loss, Pittman remains a man among boys on the court, using his brute strength as his main tool. If that's not a recipe for a guy who could bring down the backboard, then I don't know what is.

4. Eddy Curry

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Speaking of rarely-seen members of the Miami Heat who have lost tons of weight, Eddy Curry has gone from being a mountain of a man to being a monster of a man—definitely a positive step for old Cheesburger Eddy.

Curry has cut his weight to (reportedly) just under 300 pounds, and even though he's no longer a kid that can jump high and play an entire game, he's still a man with enough strength to flip a car.

His new-found slim(ish)ness will do well with his strength, as most of the weight he lost was fat, which will make him a danger to backboards everywhere.

3. Andrew Bynum

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With Andrew Bynum's strength and not-so-sunny disposition from day to day, he could definitely end up with more than two points when he goes up for a dunk.

Bynum's huge frame puts him at seven feet tall and nearly 290 pounds, which seems like it would be more than enough to pull down a huge hunk of metal out of the sky.

He's the most Shaq-like player in the league these days, although he's still missing a small child's worth of weight if he wants to rival the massive big man who shook rims every time he touched them.

2. Blake Griffin

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Blake Griffin has ferocious intensity and strength when he dunks, but that's not the biggest reason I see that Griffin could bring down a backboard.

To me, it would just be too perfect not to be Griffin to be the next guy to bring down a rim. Over the past year and a half, we've experienced an ESPN-gasm every time Griffin dunks a ball, and if he were to bring a little extra down with him with a dunk, the entire network would stop.

The only thing that would rival Griffin's backboard-breaking coverage would be if Tim Tebow cured AIDS during halftime of next year's Super Bowl, at which point he would then go on to win Super Bowl MVP and the entire city of Briston, Connecticut would implode into itself.

1. Dwight Howard

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When you look at players with the right combination of size, weight, athleticism and sheer brute strength, look no further than Dwight Howard.

Now, Howard is a tad light according to his listed weight (only 265 pounds? That can't be right.), but he's so strong that he could easily make up for that with the power that he generates with each jump.

Every time Howard goes up to put a hurting on the rim, it should be quivering, because there are few people in this world more dangerous to a small circle of metal attached to a pane of glass.

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