Howard

It's funny. About a year and a half ago, everyone in the basketball world were debating Howard vs. Okafor. Do you take the young highschooler, brimming with potential but might take a few years to develop, or you take the sure thing in Okafor, a guy with 3 years of college experience and a proven track record of winning ways?

At the time, even I had my doubts about Dwight Howard. He was very young, and although he put up huge numbers in highschool -- it's still highschool. He very talented though, and very cocky. I was worried about that myself because he's a very outspoken Christian and I could easily picture people cheering against him for those reasons.

However at the end of the day I knew Howard would be better than Okafor eventually.

Who would have thought it would only take 1 full season for him to be better though? Dwight Howard has taken huge strides this year, he's averaging a double double (same as last year) but this year he is dominating rebounding machine. He is an absolute force on the glass. It's scary. He's averaging 13 rebounds per game. Think about that. That's about 1/3 of the rebounds that the Raptors average per game.

At the age of 20, he's averaging 15 PPG and 13 RPG. To give you a better perspective, Kevin Garnett averaged 17 and 6 at the same age. Garnett didn't start averaging 13 rebounds until he was 26.

That's pretty amazing in my opinion. Okafor won rookie of the year, but if there's a sophomore of the year award, that's gonna have to go to Howard. He's a beast.