Dwight Howard Visits Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston

Nearly two weeks ago, when word surfaced that Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard would spend some of his offseason training with 2008 Hall-of-Fame inductee Hakeem Olajuwon, the whole situation felt surreal. Magic fans had expressed their wish for Howard to learn from Olajuwon, via message boards and blog comments sections, for years. And it finally happened. Indeed, on the afternoon of June 9th, Howard sent the following message on his Twitter account, in reference to Houston:

Htowwwwwwnnnnnnn. Wasssssup

And last night, Howard caused a bit of a stir, which included the usual bevy of negative comments from some of his followers, when he posted a photo of himself with the legendary center.

The Celtics fans behind Reds Army didn't like this development. This message appeared on that site's page shortly after Howard sent the photo:

I shudder at they thought of @DwightHoward working with dream. Srsly, learning like 2 or 3 moves will make him unstoppable

If Howard can learn enough low-post trickery from Olajuwon, and if he's done enough repetitions to recall what he's learned several months down the line, he becomes borderline unguardable. For fun, here's a comparison of the two players' cumulative statistics through age 24. Believe it or not, Howard won't turn 25 until December.