Maybe it was the fact that I drafted him and watched him kill me in FTs and TOs, while not really helping me in assists, and then even falling off the face of the earth in blocks. If you owned him, you probably noticed the following trend...Number of times he blocked at least three or more shots in a game over the final three months of the season? April - 0, March - 3, February -2. Contrast that to the first three months when the numbers were 10, 6 and 7 and you might start to understand my problem with him.

Don't get me wrong. Howard's an absolute beast and I love him as an NBA player. He reminds of a lot of Shaq in his prime. And when I was a rookie in this business I wrote a pretty massive piece on why you shouldn't draft Shaq in Roto leagues, and why he wasn't the safest bet in H2H leagues that counted FT%. And Shaq was a triple-double threat with the occasional big assist game, which you won't see from Howard any time soon.

It all depends on your league. If centers are at a premium and you have to play two of them, he probably deserves to be a very high pick. If you don't count FT% or TOs, you can even take him with the first overall pick if you want. But the only guarantee he comes with is that he will be devastating in two categories (FT% and TOs - if you count them), studly in four cats (FG%, Pts, Rebs, Blks) and ineffective to useless in the other three (3s, assists, steals).

If you compare him to Amare Stoudemire, it's really not even close. At all. But might Howard work his way back into the the Top 24 at some point this summer or fall? Sure. But not in Roto leagues, and I'm still not sure he's really capable of offering second-round value in many leagues next season. Just my two cents.

And for the record, according to Basketballmonster.com, here are Howard's rankings based on his numbers this season:

Leagues counting 9 cats, inc. TO and FT% - 87th
Leagues counting 8 cats, no TO, and FT% - 49th
Leagues counting 8 cats, no TO, and FTM - 2nd