TITLE ON HIS MIND
Dwight Howard says he hasn’t pondered where he’ll play, just that he wants to win it all.
He is kindhearted, funny and generous.
He would rather avoid controversy than start any, which should make him a good company man.
He isn’t an aloof, “I don’t give a damn” athlete.
He interacts with fans. He plays with kids. He signs autographs. Opinions of others, what people think, matter to him.
He is always cordial to media and diligent about that job responsibility; rarely says something insightful, and never says anything “incite” ful and is scandal-free.
He works hard at practice, takes care of his body and trains as hard as anyone.
So why then does Dwight Howard have such a bad reputation?
“I don’t know,” one of his Rockets teammates said recently. “Can you tell me?”
Not really. But nothing short of an NBA championship will change it, and the odds of him getting one with the Rockets aren’t good.
Howard is so overly analyzed (translation: criticized) that his body language elicits rebuke whether he is smiling, frowning or almost anything in between.
Howard addressed that on TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”
“I’ve had the problem of smiling too much, people said I’m smiling too much, or I play too much on the floor,” he said. “When I’m not smiling and doing all that stuff, it looks like I’m not interested in the game. So it’s like a thin line, where I’m like, ‘Do I not smile, or do I smile and have fun?’ ”
The sad thing is he was serious. These are the things he thinks about. As I said, what others think matters to him.
How much time has Tim Duncan spent during his wondrous career pondering whether he should smile more or less?
Howard appeared on TNT and on NBA TV when he was in his hometown of Atlanta last week.
Understandably, his interview with Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith drew the most interest because theirs is one of the best shows on television and people love barking Barkley.
Howard’s stop at NBA TV was more informative.
Howard said he took only a week off after the Rockets’ season ended with an embarrassing loss to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs.
‘Our team’ means Rockets … for now
“I started training because I was really upset with how the season ended and I want to make sure next year when we play our team is a lot better and I’m a lot better as a player and a person,” Howard said.
By “our team,” he meant Rockets, though he has a player option in his contract that could allow him to become an unrestricted free agent should he so choose.
Much was made of an apparent stumble on TNT during which Howard almost said “wherever that may be” when talking about how he hopes to dominate next season.
But in a standard “Howard being Howard” moment, he claims he hasn’t given any thought to where he will play next season.
He has thought about smiling, but not about whether he will turn down the roughly $23.3 million the Rockets are due to pay him and become a free agent?
“I haven’t even thought about the freeagency side of things,” Howard said. “The way our season ended, the way our season was from beginning to end, it really upset me and it hurt me.
“All the talent that we had and we didn’t do the things we needed to do to continue to play at this point in the season, it really upset me.”
Should he choose to make himself available, there will be teams that want Howard. Teams that need a big man, a veteran.
Maybe, thanks to the Rockets’ seasonlong nap, that team will get a Howard who is finally so hungry that he won’t let anything stop him from being at his best.
Teams that need a leader should look elsewhere. Howard isn’t that guy. Even at 30, he prefers to be led. But he isn’t a disruptive locker-room presence.
One of his Rockets teammate told me that if anything, Howard is too good at getting along.
“He doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” the player said.
Howard’s problems with the Rockets started with his not being as good as he used to be or as good as he thinks he is.
‘All I want to do is win’
Don’t confuse that with his not being good. Far from it.
He is a force, and the Rockets misused him this season.
It didn’t prove wise to ignore someone who can get baskets as easily as Howard.
When he starts thinking about free agency, Howard will look for a team that will make him feel special — like the Rockets promised him three years ago — and a team that can help him win after 12 title-less seasons.
“All I want to do is win,” Howard said on NBA TV. “I’m on that quest, man. It’s a lot of hard work, I’ve had a lot of heartbreaks, but I’m not going to stop until I get it and then when I get it I’m going to try to get another one. “I gotta get one.” Feeling Howard’s passion, two-time NBA champion Isiah Thomas delivered several exclamations: “He wants it. He wants it.”
Howard, as he is wont to do, feigned emotion and wiped away tears that weren’t there, then gave us all something else to criticize.
A smile.