Former NBA All-Star lock Dwight Howard became one of the most polarizing players in the league (and inside locker rooms) following his messy exit from Orlando and unsuccessful stops in Los Angeles, Houston and Atlanta, and the 32-year-old admits that the business side of the NBA stripped him of some of his passion for the game.
According to Howard, a big part in his slightly resurgent year in Charlotte has been rediscovering his passion for the NBA, which had waned in the middle of his career as he bounced from team to team.
Howard: “I think I lost a little bit of the passion that I had for the game because of the business side of it, and I think every NBA player can attest to that.”
Jalen Rose: “Yes.”
Howard: “The business side can cause you to really lose some passion. I know people are like ‘how? You’re getting paid millions of dollars!’ But for Jalen and myself, the game is much bigger than just dollar amount. We love having money in our pockets and being able to travel the world, but we want to win, and we want to be able to show the world our talents.”
Rose: “Can you go a little bit deeper and say when you lost the passion? Because, for me, getting traded a couple of times, being bounced around trying to find that system, trying to find happiness. And sometimes your minutes doesn’t match your contract and things like that.”
Howard: “I would say after the situation in Orlando, where everybody felt as though I was this big, mean, crazy guy, that I just wanted to destroy franchises. And I go to L.A. and it seemed like me and Kobe didn’t work. I lost some of that passion then. I had back surgery, I wasn’t supposed to play for a whole year. I came back, tore my labrum, still played. It just seemed like I couldn’t find a break.”