Josh Howard (born April 28, 1980 in Winston-Salem, NC), North Carolina, is an American professional basketball player who plays as a small forward/scoring guard.
He was selected by the Mavericks with the 29th pick in the first round of the 2003 Draft, and since then he has made a starter for the star-studded Mavericks, helping the Mavericks reach the 2006 Finals. In the 2006–07 season, Josh Howard averaged 18.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game and was named to the Western Conference All-Star Team.
In the beginning, the team's former head coach Nelson Sr. chose Josh to use him as an outside defensive sapper.
His growth trajectory is similar to that of Jimmy Butler of the Bulls now, both rookies at the end of the first round, debuting as a defensive sapper. The difference is that Josh's arm span is much more ideal than Jimmy's, and Josh's lower limb strength at that time was extremely terrifying, and he could train hard against the "second center in the West" Dampier in the team.
Slowly, Howard's breakthrough and shooting improved, in addition to sitting firmly in the position of starting small forward, he once became the second and third choice for the Mavericks offense with Jason Terry. Later, "Little General" Johnson became the head coach, wanted to correct Howard, replacing Nowitzki as the team boss, which is undoubtedly a wrong decision, the Mavericks lost in the playoffs in 2006 and 2007 and "Little General" to correct some of the tactics he set up.
Howard became an All-Star player, got a big contract, got a little overwhelmed, began to smoke marijuana, plus he had a very serious leg problem when he was a child, knee injury, so the state of decline was particularly serious.
After being traded to the Wizards, it seemed like the season was reimbursed after only two games, and after trying to come back, he was injured again, and then the form could never come back.
In the days that followed, Josh Howard moved through the Jazz.
He was also reduced to going to the NBDL to play, but he never gave up.
Looking back now, if the Mavericks had such a small striker, it would be a dream to wake up laughing. The Mavericks originally had a physically capable wing of Finley, Josh, Daniels and Starkhouse, but now the flanks are Chandler Parsons, who has long been unable to jump, Matthews, and so on. Last year's rookie Justin Anderson had a decent play in this year's playoffs, hoping he could move towards josh's path that year, but his ball-handling ability was also 18,000 miles behind Howard's.