National Basketball Association

CBS Sports Breaks Down Atlanta Hawks' Most Underrated Player

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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CBS Sports breaks down each team’s most underrated player. Who they chose for the Atlanta Hawks could come as a bit of a surprise.

The 2016-17 season is approaching quickly. The next month is used to evaluate teams and players inside and out to try and give the best predictions for what will occur.

A popular conversation amongst fans of all sports is which players are “underrated” or “overrated.” There’s no real way to define how a player can fit into one of those molds, they are more so used as opinions of ones worth to that respective team.

CBS Sports’ Matt Moore dissected every team’s most underrated player yesterday. His choice for the Atlanta Hawks may come as a surprise.

Dwight Howard.

OK, so right off the bat, the Hawks are one of several teams that you could classify as collectively underrated. There isn’t a properly rated player on their roster, not even All-Star Paul Millsap. I wanted to go with Mike Muscala, who legitimately has the talent to be a rotation player, but he just hasn’t gotten enough floor time for Atlanta.

So we’re going with Dwight. Howard still has many of the flaws he’s always had; he tries to post-up too much and while he seems likable as far as teammates go, he also never sets a tone. But here’s the thing: Even if you ignore the efforts Howard has made to change the perception of his maturity, his overall impact still matters. He was 98th percentile on non-post-ups last year around the rim. Those are easy shots, but they are also shots you need to make because they’re easy. He’s a finisher, and that matters.

Defensively, the Rockets never really let Howard switch out on pick and rolls. Maybe he’s not capable of that anymore, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Hawks use him in more effective ways than the Rockets did, which often left him defensively neutralized on non-rolling bigs. He was typically showing before screens so hard that it made it easy for the guard to go away from the pick and get an easy opportunity.

But Howard is still really impactful as a rim protector. When he’s engaged, he can flat-out make plays.

Howard may never be the great player he once was, but he’s certainly better than the public paints him.

As Moore stated, the Hawks have a collection of underrated players. He mentions Millsap, but you could also throw Kent Bazemore into that discussion as well.

It’s still shocking to see how quickly Howard went from being one of the most dominant forces in the league to now just another big man in the minds of most fans. Don’t think Howard doesn’t realize his perception from the fans and the league has changed.

Atlanta is the perfect system for Howard to thrive in and do things that he hasn’t had the freedom to do since his days in Orlando.

This is the season that he will regain his confidence and prove to the league that he is still considered as one of the top centers in the NBA.