Dwight Howard and 5 Stars Who Will Never Lead a Team to a Title

What's the difference between Karl Malone and Moses Malone? What's the difference between Tim Duncan and Charles Barkley? What's the difference between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James? It's an easy answer, it's rings. 

In each of these cases it's why the former player is generally regarded as the "greater" player in spite of the fact that the latter player has better numbers. It's why the former group is in the conversation for the top 10 while the latter group is in the next tier. 

Other players, like two-time scoring champion Kevin Durant and reigning MVP Derrick Rose who haven't won one yet, will likely be sitting on at least one title before all is said and done. Their explosiveness, leadership and the level of talent around them bode well. It's certainly hard to write them off. 

Chris Paul is another player, who while he's never won, is inevitably going to. Now he has some talent around him on the court, but it would be nice to see some in the way of a coach. 

There are some star players who will never lead their team to a title though. Now, let me qualify this statement by elucidating three key words to the premise. 

First, I'd like to highlight the word "star." In this context I'm referencing players who could be confused with stars who would lead their team to an NBA title. I'm not referring to the "very good" players but to the elite players. 

For example, Monta Ellis might be considered by some to be a "star" and it's not at an unreasonable position. However he's not an elite level player. He's not the same kind of "star" as the players on this list. 

Second, I'd like to highlight the word "lead." There are some players who may at some point, or may already have done so, win rings, but as very important role players, perhaps even the second most important player, but not as the leader. These aren't players who will never win a ring, they are players who will never lead their team to a title. 

Here are five star players who will never lead their team to a title. 

Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony is a great regular season player. However in the postseason he becomes a guy that is little more than a volume scorer. This postseason he will become the 139th player in NBA history to attempt 1,000 postseason shots. 

Barring any significant change his field goal percentage of .419 will rank him 119th out of those 138 players. He ranks a middling 49th in that group in rebounds per game and 77th in assist per game. 

There's a reason that Anthony has only made it out of the first round one time in his nine year career. Since he's come into the league, only one player, Kobe Bryant, has more field goal attempts per minute with at least 1,500 minutes played. 

Of course Kobe's won a title or five. 

Carmelo Anthony will never win a title because there's no "I" in team but there is a "me" in 'Melo. 

Rajon Rondo

The favorite thing for pundits to bounce around as though it's meaningful is this misguided notion that scoring point guards don't win championships. The reality is that if your team leader is a point guard, if he's not a scorer, he's never going to win a championship. 

Consider the reality. Look at the great "pure" point guards in history. Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, John Stockton, and Mark Jackson are all among the all-time leaders in assists, but between them they have one ring, and that just came last year. The last "pure" point guard to win multiple championships was Bob Cousy, and he wasn't the leader of that team. 

Now look at the great point guards who have led their teams to titles, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Jerry West and Oscar Robertson. 

The reality is that teams that have point guards carry them to titles have point guards who are legitimate, high profile scorers. The last point guard to lead the league in assists and win a championship in the same year was Jerry West, who scored 25.8 points per game. 

Rondo will never be a great scorer, so he'll never lead his team to a title. The most he'll ever be is what he was when they did win, a role player who distributes to the real scorers. 

Andrew Bynum

Mike Brown is drawing a lot of heat for benching Andrew Bynum in the latter parts of the game against Oklahoma City. According to  Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com

"

Brown's gut feel didn't seem to sit well with Bynum as he appeared to become increasingly disengaged on the bench as the game dragged on through the fourth quarter and the subsequent overtimes. During several timeouts he was the lone Lakers player sitting down away from the huddle as the rest of his team stood up and fed off the energy of a tight ballgame with playoff seeding implications. 

"

These are just the latest antics of the biggest child in the universe. The 7'2" Byum is increasingly petulant. While that's not enough to keep him from winning a title (obviously he already has two), it's enough to keep him from ever leading a team at all, much less to a title. 

Leaders don't take ridiculous three-point shots, take vicious cheap shots when they lose and rip their shirts off on the way out or pout on the end of the bench when they aren't in the game. 

Brown added, 

"

"I did not think that Drew, and even Pau at times, the combination of both those bigs were up the floor in pick-and-roll coverage," Brown said. "Just Jordan Hill's activity at the point of the screen was better than all of our bigs combined tonight." 

Added Brown: "I know in pick-and-roll coverage, if we tell our bigs—whether it's Andrew or Pau or whoever—to be up the floor, if you're not up the floor at the point of the screen and we're getting hurt and somebody is [playing up on screens], then somebody else is going to play. If we give our guys a coverage, then they've got to do it." 

"

A leader wouldn't pout. A leader would improve on the aspects of his game that kept him out. Andrew Bynum doesn't do what leaders do which is why he'll never lead a team to a title. 

Kevin Love

Of all the names that are on this list, Kevin Love is the one that causes me the most consternation to type. I absolutely admire everything about Love. He is one of the hardest working, most dedicated players in the game. 

Few players work as hard to hone their game. Few players put as much effort into their game while on the court. Love has flaws, gaping holes in his game even. He defends like a cop defends donuts, which is to say, he doesn't. 

I have confidence that he has a summer ahead of him working on that part of his craft and that he'll become a vastly improved defender next season. 

No, the reason that Love will never lead his team to a title is that he is physically limited. He simply does not have the elite athletic ability that the other players in the league do. While I believe that Love will win a ring, it won't be as the leader on the Timberwolves or any other team, but as the second best player on the team. 

Dwight Howard

Dwight Howard probably did more to lose the respect of fans throughout the league this year than anyone would have thought possible. His mind changed was more times this season than an infant's diapers. 

It was a horrendous thing to watch, seeing Howard flip, flop, flip and flop on whether he wanted to be traded, on asking to be traded, on whether he wanted Stan Van Gundy or if he'd asked for him to be fired. He was about as consistent as an octogenarian with IBS on a low fiber diet. 

That's hardly the qualities you're looking for in a leader. If we learned anything about Howard this year it's that he is to immature to lead anyone to anything except confusion. A season that started off as a debacle, quickly spun even more out of control after that, then concluded even worse. 

It's to the point where one has to wonder if Howard can even be on a championship team besides that. His free throw shooting is so horrendous that the entire offense must change gears during the last half of the last quarter, which is why Orlando tends to lose those games in the postseason. 

Effectively, they play four on five against postseason teams. 

Finally, where is the improvement in Howard's game? The other large part of the frustration with Howard is that while his game has improved some, it's been limited improvement. Certainly for a player with his physical capacity and experience he should be leaps and bounds ahead of where he is. 

In short, the reason that Howard will never lead a team to the title is that he hasn't shown any interest in doing so. At most he's shown interest on attaching himself to someone who will carry him to a title.