Just when Dwight Howard breaks through with the Lakers, the All-Star center faces a backlash from the groupmates he left behind.
Despite a starring(p) outing against the Hornets in the Lakers' comeback win Sunday, Howard had a orthogonal controversy waiting for him at his locker thanks to comments he made to KCAL-TV earlier in the week. While discussing his eight age with the magical, Howard said, "My team in Orlando was a team full of hatful who nobody wanted, and I was the leader and I led that team with a smile on my face."
Want to guess who hates being called a person "nobody wanted"? Everybody.
Howard's former teammates learned of the comments in short order and shot back at the three-time vindicatory Player of the Year.
"At some agitate, when are you [Dwight] gonna as a man, when are you going to take ownership and stay out of the media in a professional manner?" deceit point guard Jameer Nelson told theOrlando Sentinel on Wednesday.
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Former Magic shooting guard J.J. Redick echoed those sentiments.
"I'm not surprised by it," Redick, now with the Milwaukee Bucks, told ESPNLosAngeles.com on Wednesday. "I would be more surprised when Dwight starts fetching responsibility. That would be the most negative thing I crumb say, but that's the truth.
"You can't take all the credit and not guide any of the blame."
Howard recognized the media maelstrom he created and quickly backpedaled, aspect his delivery were misinterpreted.
"My statement was just to say that our team that I played with in Orlando, we were the underdogs," Howard said, according to ESPNLosAngeles.com. "Nobody really talked close our team. It was underrated. Everybody overlooked us for the whole time I was there in Orlando and I hated that. We all hated that. We thrived get through that. My comments were never to say anything disrespectful to those guys."
Howard can claim his words were manipulated, but Nelson and Redick suggested that his comments are not out of character. And former Magic forward Rashard Lewis and former Magic general manager genus Otis Smith both scolded Howard for his comments, as well.
Regardless of the truth to Howard's statement, lobbing grenades at a group that made the 2009 NBA Finals is unbecoming for a player who had such(prenominal) a nasty divorce from the team that drafted him. And the comments aren't likely to eliminate away with Howard's first return trip to Orlando looming on process 12.
Materials taken from USA Today
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