Dwight Howard was the center piece of the NBA trade deadline even though he failed to be traded.
After digesting this story, I decided to write about it because Dwight Howard, who is loved and is seen in a positive light by many people in the NBA and the public, has been in troubled waters. Last week was arguably the most interesting week the NBA has had since it returned to play after their lockout. The focus was on the trade deadline and who could possibly be traded to another team. There were many interesting possibilities with names like Deron Williams from the Nets being moved and Pau Gasol from the Lakers; but no other player was more looked at then Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic.
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For a while now there had been rumors about Dwight Howard wanting to leave the Orlando Magic because he believed that the coaching staff and front office personnel weren’t doing enough to bring in new talent and to contribute to a championship caliber team. For as long as Dwight Howard pleaded for that to happen it never did and Howard’s trade seemed eminent.
Days before the trade deadline, ESPN analysts had been discussing different options as to where Howard could end up as if to say that this is definitely going to happen. The Orlando Magic however, weren’t going to just let their franchise center leave without trying to retain him. By doing this they pretty much begged him to stay by saying that if you stay we will make sure we bring in new talent. This isn’t Howard’s first rodeo though and he said he would not be coming back to Orlando next season. This is where things took a turn for the worst for Howard.
After hearing that Howard didn’t want to come back to Orlando the following season, front office management decided to throw out all the stops and offer him total control of the team essentially. The Orlando Magic came back with a statement saying that if Howard stays, he has the ability to decide the fates of Coach Stan Van Gundy and the General Manager of the team…. I’m sorry but is that really necessary? I understand that Howard is a franchise player but are you really going to let him have full control of this organization and allow him to make personnel decisions? To me if a player like that wants to leave bad enough then you trade him and get as much value as you can out of him. Howard has been there his entire career and has been to the finals and has not been able to close out a championship. I say you start new and bring in a bunch of new talent and see where that takes you. There is no way I would allow a player to have so much control where he should be able to decide the fates of coaches and GM’s.
After hearing this news Howard decided to stay and said he believes there is enough talent on the team to make another championship run; this was days after he said he didn’t want to be a part of the organization anymore. Unbelievable.
For all I know he could have even flip-flopped again just because he wanted to have fun with the media who knows. Dwight Howard is a standup guy and is loyal to his team but this story just blew me away and he should have talked with some PR people before blabbing away to the media.
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