Hakeem Olajuwon Thinks Dwight Howard Needs More Freedom


Lockout or not, Dwight Howard has been going hard all summer. For the second consecutive year, Howard spent last week in Houston working with Hakeem Olajuwon, continuing to build on the principles Olajuwon taught him during their three-day session last summer. The Dream gave Dwight some tips, including having more confidence and freedom in his game. Via the Orlando Sentinel: “Last week, Howard went to Olajuwon’s house every morning to work out at Olajuwon’s private court for several hours. The two big men not only worked on Howard’s post-game footwork and mid-range shooting game, they talked about Howard keeping a scorer’s mentality and ways for Howard to improve his free-throw shooting. Olajuwon feels Howard can be an even better offensive player with a little more freedom and confidence in his offensive moves. ‘He just said I want you to do them in the game, and tell your coach you got a lot of skills and he needs to let you use all your skills,’ Howard said Tuesday. Going into the week of training, Howard said he wanted to work on ‘shooting more’ and getting his free-throw percentage above 75 percent. Howard is a 59.8 percent free-throw shooter for his career, a weakness that restricts his offensive game as a whole. Howard felt the week with Olajuwon helped him – and now it’s on Howard to build on those principles. ‘For me, it’s all about confidence,’ Howard said. ‘All of the stuff that we worked on is stuff I’ve been doing my whole life.'”