Dwight Howard: ‘Harden is like a young Kobe to me…I don’t know why’

Dwight Howard’s NBA career is apparently over for good; He couldn’t find a team last season and had to go to Taiwan to play., with Taoyuan Leopard. At 37 years old, and while you never know when he’ll still be officially active, a return is going to be difficult for the center from Asia, who, for example, is trying to get other NBA players to play without accommodations (especially Outstandinglike Carmelo Anthony) go out there and play with him.

Howard’s career had a strange ending. The No. 1 pick in the 2004 draft did not pass Universityused to be One of the best players in the NBA while with the Orlando Magic (2004-12). He appeared in six of eight All-Star games during those years and was named to five consecutive All-Quintet teams (2008-12). He was also a three-time Defensive Player of the Year (2009-12), a four-time All-NBA rebounder (five in his career) and a two-time All-NBA shot blocker. Additionally, to increase his popularity, he won the Slam Dunk Contest in 2008, a year after which he reached the Finals when his Magic team could not defeat the Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. .

In eight seasons at Florida, he averaged 18.4 points, 13 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game while shooting nearly 58% from the field.

But everything changed when he was traded to the Lakers on August 10, 2012 Lots of However, something went wrong. Physical issues (for him and the entire team) and his lack of chemistry with Kobe made the 2012-13 season a nightmare for the Lakers, who were eager to retake the NBA with Kobe, Howard, Gasol and already veteran players. throne, but was greatly hindered. Steve Nash is injured. Summer 2013, He did something no star can quite do: signed with the Lakers as a free agent. He chose the Rockets to play with James Harden. But it didn’t go well either, and he started to go into hell, with more and more people talking about his lack of attitude, and the game moving towards a style that no longer suited his characteristics as a center forward.

After three years in Houston, he played for the Hawks, Hornets and Wizards. In the summer of 2019, he stepped out of the NBA for the first time. No one was interested in him, he was weak and classified as a problem player.. However, entering August, the injury of DeMarcus Cousins ​​and the absence of the guaranteed center made the Lakers choose him again to strengthen the first LeBron James-Anthony Davis project. Many scoffed at the move, but the Los Angeles native ended up being the 2020 champion. Howard played a prominent role and fit perfectly into a very secondary role, with a positive attitude and ability to stretch and show good-time intensity on defense and rebounding.

But then the Lakers chose a different path, and Howard went to the 76ers, where he once again showed a significant decline that was already very obvious in his strange third period with the Lakers. The 2021-22 season has been abysmal, marked by Russell Westbrook’s disastrous move.

Now, Howard laments that Los Angeles didn’t choose to keep the title after the Florida bubble: “Why didn’t they keep the same team? We just became champions, but they would rather sign Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell. It’s their way of saying they believe they are better and younger at center. “

The truth is, the Lakers have dramatically reinvented the championship team they once were (under Frank Vogel) The defense was great, but the offense was hampered because LeBron and Davis weren’t at full strength. With the arrival of Mark, Harrell and Schroeder, the Lakers seem to have hit the nail on the head: They posted a 21-6 record in February and seemed poised to win their second consecutive championship., when everything was falling apart due to injuries and, for many, the physical and mental exhaustion of the season, marred by the brief downtime experienced by those who went further into the restart in Florida. It was a very bad year for the Lakers… For Marc Gasol, he’s no longer at his best and has issues with the teamEspecially after the arrival of Andre Drummond, another center on the team. The Spaniard is no longer playing in the NBA and was unable to cap off the historic stage with a second championship ring for him with the team, in addition to his brother Gao, who is also a franchise legend.

Howard on the show my expert opinionalso talked about the differences between Kobe and LeBron, two of the best players in history and with whom he shared a locker room: “LeBron plays dumb a lot, he likes to have fun… Kobe didn’t do anything stupid to anyone, he couldn’t even stop and talk in the locker room. LeBron is like where I grew up, Georgia. We look like twins and we act the same way. Just kidding and having a lot of fun… We went out to the track where we also had a lot of fun and dominated our opponents. But Kobe just walked past us and nothing happened. We wondered if he would do this, walk by without shaking anyone’s hand, not speaking, not making gestures or anything. That’s it. Now in the long run, I think it was his way of trying to get everyone ready for training because the rest of us were making a lot of noise.we’ve been there undecided

And joking, he has a completely different approach. “

The center also made it clear Now he will definitely not repeat the decision of 2013“, when he changed the Lakers to the Rockets and replaced Kobe’s company with the then-emerging James Harden: “In my opinion, Harden is like a younger version of Kobe. I don’t even know why I thought that…if I had sat down and thought about things and meditated on my decision instead of relying so much on my emotions, I would have definitely chosen to stay in LA. “