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It seems to me we are all missing the obvious here. Dwight Howard has absolutely no intention of re-signing with the Lakers. Why should he?
Have you looked at that roster?
Howard is entering what should be the prime of his career. He turns 28 in December. He is the only – and I mean ONLY – player on the Lakers’ roster under the age of 32 who you would even remotely want on your team, long term.
Jodie Meeks? Earl Clark? Please.
Before Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series against the San Antonio Spurs, the Los Angeles Lakers handed out white towels to fans at the Staples Center.
Apparently, someone in the marketing department didn’t understand symbolism. By halftime, those towels had become flags of surrender for the Lakers, the biggest underachieving team in the history of the NBA.
Dwight Howard offered his own symbolism, figuratively throwing in the towel midway through the third quarter. Unwilling to grit his teeth and bang and bump his way through all of another telling, embarrassing loss, he got himself ejected, starting his offseason of uncertainty with an hour’s headstart on his teammates.
Dwight Howard, human surrender flag. Yeah, there’s the sort of toughness you want to build a franchise around.
NBA players always seem to question what the media knows when the voting for awards don’t go a certain way. That was again the case when it was determined that Marc Gasol won the Defensive Player of the Year award this season.
Manu Ginobili, who has had the privilege of playing alongside the great defense of Tim Duncan all his career, clearly did not appreciate his big man getting snubbed for the award after having yet another impacting presence on the defensive end for one of the best teams in the league. Here is what he had to say, from Mike Monroe of San Antonio Express-News:
The Los Angeles Lakers are running a lot of their offense through 7-footer Pau Gasol. Maybe they can have him bring the ball upcourt, too.
The Lakers are running out of guards. Already without injured superstar Kobe Bryant, the seventh seed could also be without point guards Steve Nash and Steve Blake and shooting guard Jodie Meeks for Friday night’s Game 3 of their first-round series vs. the San Antonio Spurs.
When Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets played their first game on Saturday in Game 1 of the opening round of the playoffs, most expected a high-scoring game between two of the better offensive teams in the league.
The final score of the contest? 97-95. Not exactly what we had in mind.
[Related: Why the Warriors can beat the Nuggets in 6 games]
Both teams suffered from what appeared to be a case of the butterflies, and the Warriors actually did a better job of keeping the tempo of the game in their favor, given the circumstances (playing in Denver against the most potent offensive team in the league).
Still, a lot went wrong (if you are a Warriors fan), from Mark Jackson’s decision-making on the defensive end, Klay Thompson’s inability to finish layups (this has been an ongoing issue throughout the season for him) despite his solid overall play, Stephen Curry’s inability to be more aggressive to Jarrett Jack getting annihilated by the 37-year-old Andre Miller. And of course, the team lost David Lee for the season.
