Why not? He has done it plenty of times before. He anchored a team defense that consisted of Jameer Nelson, Hedo Turkoglu, Rashard Lewis and Mickael Pietrus/Courtney Lee to the best Defensive Rating in the entire NBA. Other than Howard, nobody would even be considered an above average player defensively and they were one of the best defensive teams in the league. Hell, this season they have guys like Nelson, Turkoglu, Arenas, Richardson, Lewis, Carter etc... and none of them are worth a damn defensively, yet they are 6th in OPPG and 3rd in DRTG. Howard has proven time and time again that he has the ability to anchor a team defense with a bunch of sieves around him.