Dwight chooses Rockets

[Sccit]

dwight is not even a 1st tier superstar in this league...the fact that he got this treatment in the first place is pretty damn mind-bogglin.


mid-season last year "i already know where i'm signing this offseason".....on twitter after scoring 7 points and getting ejected in the lakers-spurs elimination game this postseason "I hope I get the chance to make it up to you!” Thank u la."......the guy is the epitome of a gutless coward. have fun, houston.

[Russell Bell]

Oh shit

Dwight supposedly changes his mind, 50/50 on lakers/rockets

[Sccit]

Oh shit

Dwight supposedly changes his mind, 50/50 on lakers/rockets

THIS GUY IS INSANE

[Remedy360]

lmfao, dude's a fucking sociopath.

[Sccit]

U LITERALLY HAVE TO HAVE MENTAL PROBLEMS TO NOT KNOW BY NOW


HE'S MEETING WITH KUPCHAK TONIGHT...BEST CASE SCENERIO- HE THREATENS TO ONLY RETURN WITH THE HIRING OF PHIL JACKSON

[Bch]

dwight howard reportedly confused after jeanie buss offered to let dwight howard anally fist her every night

either that or they're ponying up more money under the table. There's alot of things behind the curtains we dont see thats covered up by PR firms that 100 mill athletes have

[Russell Bell]

Oh shit

Dwight supposedly changes his mind, 50/50 on lakers/rockets

THIS GUY IS INSANE

self centered as shit

[Sccit]

alri, now it's official.........i think

[Remedy360]

LOL


http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakersnow/la-sp-ln-kobe-bryant-unfollows-dwight-howard-twitter-20130705,0,7698220.story?track=rss

Now that Dwight Howard has made his intentions known, preparing to join the Houston Rockets when the NBA's moratorium ends on July 10, Kobe Bryant quietly made a statement.

After "unfollowing" Howard on Twitter, Bryant put a picture on Instagram featuring teammate Pau Gasol with his hand on Bryant's head.

With the picture, Bryant wrote "#vamos #juntos #lakercorazon #vino."

His message, roughly translated from Spanish reads, "We go, united -- Laker heart," along with Bryant's nickname of "Vino."

With Howard out, Gasol is far-more likely to return for the final year of his contract with the Lakers.

While the team will save significant luxury tax without Howard, the Lakers have only about $3.2 million to spend in free agency to try to replace the All-Star center.

Next year the Lakers stand to have significant cap room, with the potential to add two maximum players to join Bryant - assuming the veteran guard is willing to return on a discount from the $30.5 million he'll receive this season.

Gasol will make $19.3 million.  Currently the Lakers have $77.4 million of guaranteed salary next season.

[Chamillitary Click]

Kobe sounding mad hurt. On some bad breakup shit. We all saw this a while back.

If they land Josh Smith too, that's a fucking powerhouse.

Keep your head up, NIK. 2014, Bron declares the talents are to go to LA and you and me are right back in business.

[Remedy360]

LOL @ the idea of NIK & Cham following the same NBA team, that's sitcom material.

[Elano The One And Only]

The Lakers didn't lose a center, they dodged a bullet.

Take a hike, Dwight, and don't let your cape hit you on the way out.

Dwight Howard has been formally chased out the door of basketball's greatest franchise by its legacy, its pressure, and, apparently, a rousing recruiting challenge from Kobe Bryant.

Does a city of starry expectations want its favorite basketball team built around somebody who doesn't have the shoulders for it?

It's a good day for the Houston Rockets, but a great day for the Lakers, who will watch Howard walk to the Rockets for less money, lower expectations, and probably four more years of mediocrity.

All together now: Whew!

Gone is perhaps the biggest one-year disappointment in Lakers history, an All-Star center who arrived here last summer bearing a championship promise he quickly broke with a lack of consistent intensity, a shortage of competitive focus and an absence of any sort of measurable refusal to lose.

His first play as a Laker perfectly summed up the dream that was D12. It was a thunderous dunk. His last play as a Laker perfectly summed up the reality that was Dwight Howard. He was ejected from the final loss in a four-game sweep by the San Antonio Spurs, abandoning his short-handed teammates and disappearing through the tunnel as an injured Kobe Bryant was hobbling out.

He spent much of the season recovering from back surgery, but even when he was close to 100%, his intensity was still 50-50. He played through pain, except when he didn't. He wanted the Lakers to be his team, except when it was his team. When Bryant suffered an Achilles' tendon tear, Howard also disappeared.

For two years, this column space pushed and prodded and finally begged the Lakers to acquire Howard, then celebrated when it did. The line for suckers starts here.

"The Lakers figured it out, they always do," I wrote after Howard's acquisition last August.

It turns out, I could write the same thing again with Howard's departure. Eleven months after the Lakers figured out how to trade for him, here's guessing they also figured out that he wasn't really worth risking a five-year title abyss to keep him.

Yes, they offered him the maximum contract of $118 million over five seasons, nearly $30 million more guaranteed than the Rockets' four-year offer. Yes, they put up these silly signs all over town and General Manager Mitch Kupchak said all these silly things about Howard being the franchise's future.

But in the end, it all seemed like an expensive game of chicken. For the sake of appearances, the Lakers had to make a very public pursuit of a player they really didn't want to catch.

There will be talk nationwide that the Lakers' failure to keep a star in the prime of his career for the first time in franchise history is indicative of the organization's dysfunction and eventual downfall in the wake of the death of Jerry Buss. And, certainly, there are huge front-office problems that sponsors and season-ticket holders will need addressed, such as, who is actually running this thing, anyway?

But don't kid yourself. If the Lakers really wanted to keep Dwight Howard, they would have kept him.

If they really wanted Howard, they would have fired Coach Mike D'Antoni instead of allowing him to sit in the room for their final pitch. That's right, the biggest barrier to Howard's re-signing with the Lakers was actually brought in to sell him on the Lakers.

If they really wanted Howard, Phil Jackson would have been the coach in that room, instead of escaping to Montana while communicating to Howard through Twitter.

If they really wanted Howard, they wouldn't have attempted to dissuade Kobe Bryant from telling him the truth. While the Rockets were undoubtedly convincing Howard of his greatness, Bryant was making a final pitch in which he challenged Howard to follow his lead and strive for that greatness. If Howard was truly fit to be a Laker, he would have grabbed at the shine of those five rings instead of cowering from it.

[Elano The One And Only]

He seemed like the perfect fit.

The second coming of Superman.

A dominating center to follow in the footsteps of George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal.

A larger-than-life personality tailor-made for the bright lights of Hollywood.

He seemed to be the perfect player to take the torch from Kobe Bryant, who will turn 35 in August, and become the next franchise player for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Everything seemed to fit perfectly except for one thing: Dwight Howard didn't want it.

On Friday, he made that abundantly clear when the All-Star center told ESPN's Stephen A. Smith that he would sign a free-agent contract with the Rockets when the league lifts its annual moratorium on player business Wednesday.

As much as Angelenos wanted to embrace Howard as one of their own and put him alongside the other great centers who came before him, he never truly allowed them to by never committing to the team and the city that so desperately wanted him.

He met every question about his future with the Lakers with an equal amount of uneasiness and uncertainty.

The Lakers tried to woo Howard the same way they wooed O'Neal 17 years ago. Back then, former Lakers general manager Jerry West walked O'Neal onto the court at the old Forum and told him to look up at the retired jerseys and championship banners, and told O'Neal that he wanted his jersey up there along with a few championships before he retired. Current Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak made a similar pitch to Howard when he gave him a tour of the team's training facility when he had his introductory news conference.

O'Neal accepted the challenge. Howard ran from it.

His introductory news conference last year should have been the first hint that Howard wasn't the right fit for the Lakers.

He used the word "fun" about 50 times while uttering the word "championship" only once.

Kupchak introduced Howard to Los Angeles at the time by saying, "We're hopeful that 10 years from now, we can add a jersey to that wall over there that says, 'Dwight Howard.'"

A little more than 10 months later, Howard decided to ditch a dream that was never his and the team that thought he would be the future of the franchise.

Howard not only becomes the first superstar player in the prime of his career to leave the Lakers, but he took a pay cut to do so. The Lakers offered him a five-year, $118 million contract, and he turned that down in favor of one fewer year and 30 million fewer dollars from the Rockets.

Let that sink in for a second.

He left Los Angeles for Houston. He left one of the most storied franchises in sports history and a winner of 16 championships for a team that has won two titles and hasn't even won a division title since 1995. He leaves a team that has missed the playoffs only five times in its 65-year history for a team that has missed the playoffs eight times in the past 14 years.

In hindsight, maybe Houston is actually the perfect fit for Howard, who always seemed to be more about having fun than winning championships.

It's not always fun taking the journey to win a championship. As Bryant recently noted, "I'd rather be perceived as a winner than a good teammate."

Howard found that out the hard way in his one season as Bryant's teammate. Bryant wanted to win. Howard wanted to have fun. Those two mindsets never meshed, and neither did Howard and Bryant.

Bryant rode Howard harder than he ever has been ridden. His goal wasn't to drive Howard out of town but to drive him to be a champion. By the end of the season, Bryant knew the chances of Howard staying and learning under him for the next few years were a long shot.

The Lakers were never Howard's first choice. He was traded to Los Angeles after several attempts at a deal with his first choice, the Brooklyn Nets, fell apart.

By the end of his first and only season in Los Angeles, the Lakers should have known they still weren't Howard's first choice. They should have realized the dream they had for Howard's career didn't fall in line with Howard's dream for his career. They should have understood Howard was no longer the perfect fit for this team and this city.

While Kupchak talked about erecting a statue in Howard's honor, and the Lakers plastered banners and billboards around town pleading with Howard to stay, Los Angeles quickly became as uninterested in Howard as he was in the Lakers.

Los Angeles is a city that isn't used to pleading with anyone to stay, and the Lakers aren't a team used to pleading with any player to re-sign. The jarring image of both taking place around the city and during the Lakers' two-hour meeting with Howard this week should have been a good indication that this was not a relationship worth salvaging.

Howard and the Lakers seemed like a perfect marriage a year ago, but in the end, their pairing met with the same swift fate as so many failed Hollywood marriages before it.

[Mietek23]

LOL @ the idea of NIK & Cham following the same NBA team, that's sitcom material.

 

[The Watcher]

LOL @ the idea of NIK & Cham following the same NBA team, that's sitcom material.