Superman Has Entered The Building

On December 14th, 2005, I wrote a blog entry during an Orlando Magic road trip to New York and Dallas. This was Dwight Howard's rookie season; on the first game of that trip, Howard recorded 23 points and 13 rebounds in a win over the Knicks.

Here's part of that entry from two-plus years ago: The kid is an absolute monster, and he only gets better with each passing day. As [Magic television announcer] David Steele would say on the bus back to the airport later that night, Howard 'is going to save the franchise.'

Save the franchise? After watching the Slam Dunk contest at the NBA's All-Star Weekend in New Orleans the other night, I need to amend that statement.

Dwight Howard is going to save the National Basketball Association.

Does it need saving? As Orlando Sentinel columnist Jerry Greene noted this week, the latest Harris Interactive Poll shows that the NBA's popularity relative to other major college and pro sports has dropped once again -- tied for sixth with a 4 percent choice among those polled, a number that's down 60 percent over the last five years. That's tied with golf and college basketball, but trailing the NFL, baseball, college football, auto racing, and hockey (!). We've obviously come a long way from the days when "The NBA on NBC" was among the highest-rated programs on television each week.

Remember those days? Marv, the Czar, and Ahmad? Hannah Storm in the studio? I'm thinking of the early 90's, long before anyone had ever heard of Mixed Martial Arts or televised poker. The NBA was mainstream then; now, it's tied for sixth.

The reasons for pro basketball's decline in popularity are too numerous and complicated to lay out here. NASCAR has something to do with it; the proliferation of cable and satellite television and the Internet explosion probably counts, too. There's likely a socioeconomic factor as well -- a growing resentment towards young, obscenely wealthy professional athletes who don't seem to 'get it.' Whatever. All I know for sure is this:

What I saw on Saturday night was the most compelling thirty minutes of NBA-related coverage that I've witnessed since I left ESPN to move home to Orlando and join Sun Sports -- which, coincidentally, was almost five years ago. Dwight Howard, for anyone who missed it, owned the night.

He set the tone by dunking from behind the backboard -- something that I can write in ten words, but cannot possibly encapsulate for anyone who didn't see it. He raised the bar with the Superman Dunk -- and much like the Blind Dunk (Dee Brown), the Spud Dunk (Spud Webb), and the Free Throw Line Dunk (Jordan), Howard's effort instantly lept into one-line recognition status. And then, when merely showing up for the final round would have been enough to bury poor Gerald Green, Howard stunned us again by lofting a bounce pass to the rim, tapping the ball off the backboard with his left hand, and thundering home a dunk with his right.

It was ridiculous and magnificent. Sick and uplifting. Go back and watch the reactions from his peers -- check the looks on the faces of future Hall of Famers like Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd -- and judge for yourself. They have no idea what to make of this wonder-child.

Let me help them: Dwight Howard is going to save the NBA.

He's not going to save the league purely because of his athleticism, which is freakish to the point of incredulity. He's going to save the league because he's an otherworldly athlete whose personality is such that even the most grizzled NBA observers -- the Charles Barkleys and Kenny Smiths of the world -- are drawn to him.

Did anyone listen to Kenny and Chuck gushing over Howard on Saturday night? Did you hear Barkley -- Barkley, of all people -- make the comment that Howard "is a great face for that franchise?" Did you hear Kenny Smith declare the contest "over" after the first round, noting that the earnest efforts of the other candidates -- and let's be honest, who cares about their names -- "wouldn't get it done?"

That doesn't happen solely because of athleticism. That happens because of personality. Howard is a magnet, the way Jordan and Magic were magnets, the way that, despite their spectacular skills, Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter and Tim Duncan are not. No knock on anyone in particular -- Magic, along with Larry Bird, saved the league once, Jordan elevated it into the mainstream, and guys like Lebron James have carried the flag admirably -- but they don't light the skies like Dwight Howard does.

In this lineage, the succession that covers my lifetime, there is Bird, Magic, Jordan, Lebron, and then Dwight. Honorable mention to Julius Erving for opening the airspace above the rim, and a purist's nod to the Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs of this decade for bringing the team game into the conversation. But the royal blood is in Howard's veins.

Dwight Howard has already saved the Magic franchise. The new arena deal in Central Florida, complete with a written guarantee from the organization not to leave Orlando for at least 25 years without prohibitive financial penalties, can be at least partially laid at his feet.

Howard just saved the Slam Dunk contest. It's been written 100 times in the last two days, and you'll read it again next season, and the season after that.

His next feat? Dwight Howard is going to save the NBA. The league may never achieve the lofty prime-time status of the 1990's -- our sports universe may simply be too fractured for that -- but he's the future. He'll have some help from players like Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Dwyane Wade, and a handful of other stars whose warmth and charisma match their supreme talents, but Howard is the key. The NBA has found the horse upon which to hitch its wagon.

Dwight Howard is going to save the league. And when his Hall of Fame biography is written, a magical Saturday night in New Orleans will be cited as the tipping point.