I don't know if you're being serious, probably not but I'm not going to believe Howard has improved his skill level until he shows it in an actual regular season game. If it was so easy that one could just go to Hakeem and come away with a whole new bag of tricks, there would be a horde of Olajuwon clones because he's been teaching for awhile. I really don't understand this whole Hakeem mentor thing: so nobody else has taught Howard counter moves or how to shoot off the glass before?

It's unheard of, actually. KG doesn't. If you look at the list, a lot of the top players are below average in the same thing (LeBron, for example, his only below average stat): Turnovers per 36. Those stay low when you aren't part of the offense that handles the ball.

Let's be clear: Steve Nash is dead last. Having a low turnovers per 36 isn't an indication that you are good at passing or avoiding turnovers, it's a sign that you aren't trusted with the ball in the first place.

Players have to have certain skills from a set of valuable basketball skills, offensive and defensive. If a player has sufficiently good skills in a particular area, especially if it matches a need for a team, (yes I'm thinking of Bruce Bowen)then they get to play in the NBA, despite weakness in other areas of the game.

It is unusual for most players to have a complete skill set (see KG comment), but it seems wrong to assume that each player in the NBA is going to have some sort of average skill set - that's exactly the opposite of what occurs, teams require players with complementary skills, so often recruit players with specific abilities - Mike Miller anyone?
Further, many players have considerable value because they are typical of their position but they have excellent skills in a specific atypical area - Centers who can shoot 3s - shooting guards who rebound and block shots etc.

Obviously the method is not going to be 100% perfect, which is why this really rudimentary DSPM regression only explains 28% of the variation in defensive performance -- by comparison, the OSPM regression explains 65% of the variation in offensive performance."

No kidding. It has Golden State with one of the most elite defensive starting 5!

Still, great work. And hopefully it's on to something with Miami as the only team with 5 starters + first 2 guys off the bench all above-average defensively. But Joel Anthony is still a black hole on offense...