“When I left L.A., I feel like I made a emotional decision,” Howard said. “I didn’t really sit down and make a logical decision about everything I was doing because I was so pissed off. N—-, I just played from a back surgery. That’s the worst surgery you could have in life, damn near. It’s a surgery in your back ’cause one little move you could get paralyzed – the wrong move from the doctors, it’s over with. And so, I’m having this surgery thinking that, ‘OK, you know what, I just had this crazy s— just happen in Orlando, I’m finna come out to L.A., hoop with Kobe and I’mma kill and then we gon’ be right back at it.’ But, it didn’t happen like that.
“And I got all the blame. So, I’m like, ‘Man, I gotta get the f— outta here. I can’t stay here. Why would I stay here? These people mad at me and I just damn came back from having back surgery and I had a torn labrum.’ I ain’t even have surgery for the torn labrum. I just said, ‘You know what, I’mma thug this s— out. I’mma play through this torn labrum.’”
by Imaginary-Mouse-1737
5 Comments
It’s not your fault Dwight, it was Sterns fault for not giving us CP3 and instead gave us Old Man Nash.
Probably didn’t deserve all the blame but back surgery doesn’t explain why you didn’t want to set screens and why you wanted to iso post up in a Dantoni offense.
Playing through an injury like that is definitely a sacrifice for the team, but along the way he decided he didn’t have to sacrifice anything else. Glad he redeemed himself but damn
Dwight feels justified in feeling that way even if part of the failures of that season were his fault. That entire season was just a perfect shitshow of injuries and a coaching system that didn’t fit with the personnel, and it cost Kobe his Achilles trying to drag the team to the playoffs.
There was no good choice for Dwight after Kobe tore his Achilles. It was either leave and get hated on by Lakers fans until 2019 or waste the remainder of whatever good play he had left on a team that wasn’t going to go anywhere.
I can say this with hindsight but Dwight made the right choice in terms of leaving.
I’m not sure what he’s complaining about. If the fans and org blamed him….we wouldn’t have put on such a silly display to keep him. He left us…
Glad he came back but what a waste of a career