Dwight Howard is a human motivational speech
Lakers center Dwight Howard has gone through the toughest part of his career and come out the other side as one of the NBA’s coolest comeback stories. It’s not hard to hear why, if you can wait a while.
LOS ANGELES — As hard as Dwight Howard hustles on the court, the Lakers center moves at his own, deliberate speed off of it. Often the last to talk to the media after games, Howard will walk past his locker multiple times, cracking jokes with teammates along the way, alternately giving LeBron James a hard time about his choice in music, or singing and dancing along.
Sometimes he’s on his way to the shower, on other occasions its to the training room, or to go shoot threes with Quinn Cook on the Staples Center court. Where Dwight is almost never in a rush to get to is his postgame media availability. At first, this seems like an inconvenience, but then an epiphany hits: Howard isn’t being inconsiderate, quite the opposite. He’s considering all of this, savoring every moment, because it was almost taken away from him.
Most of this has been written about tons of times, so let’s keep it briefer than the wait for Howard after games. The 15-year veteran was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies this offseason after an injury-plagued year with the Washington Wizards, and it looked like he might be done. This was Howard’s fourth new team in four years, and they didn’t even want him, granting him permission to seek another situation and stay away from the team.
How many times has that happened to a nearly surefire future Hall-of-Famer? Not many, it’s probably safe to hazard a guess. And Howard might still be sidelined had the Lakers not lost DeMarcus Cousins to injury. Even then, Howard had to blow the team out of the water by showing up a day early to warm up for a free agent workout he by all accounts treated like an undrafted player in his approach, and then by speaking with the team’s leadership. Selling them that he wasn’t the guy his reputation suggested, ultimately putting his money where his mouth is (literally) by taking a buyout from the Grizzlies in order to sign a non-guaranteed deal with the Lakers. A non-guaranteed deal that he and his camp asked for to show how intent Howard was on proving himself.
Howard’s point has been proven, as his stellar play off the bench and acceptance of his role led his deal to become guaranteed last week, and while waiting for Howard to speak, it’s not hard to get his teammates to talk about how thoroughly he’s impressed them.
“I think a lot of times in the league you get M.O.’s about you,” said Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma. “People said he was a bad teammate... but he’s been an amazing teammate. Always team-first. Looking to help guys, pull guys aside. He doesn’t really care about himself, he has no ego. It’s very rare, especially for someone like him, probably a future Hall-of-Famer, (with all he) has done in his career, but he’s been amazing.”
Quinn Cook, who connected with Howard in Atlanta over the summer before the latter even signed with the Lakers, similarly raves about how “selfless” Howard is, how he’s just as fun to be around as Cook imagined while watching Howard and now-teammate LeBron James joke around during All-Star festivities on TV when he was a kid. James himself says nothing has surprised him about how good Howard has been.
“He’s accepted his role and he’s thrived in it. He hasn’t had any excuses or anything, and like I said, we’re just happy to have him as part of this club,” James said. “He’s a great teammate and I’m just so excited for his success this year.”
Howard is just as excited, if not more so, when his teammates succeed. He leads bench celebrations whenever he isn’t playing, and his motor never stops running when he’s in the game. Even ever-optimistic Lakers Head Coach Frank Vogel says he couldn’t have predicted things going in this type of storybook fashion.
“I did anticipate that if he came in and his attitude was right and his role acceptance was what we hoped it would be that he could be a heck of a piece, a heck of an asset for us,” Vogel said. “I did anticipate that he could have a strong impact, (but) maybe not as strong as he’s having.”
And Howard has made an impact, averaging 14 points and 13.3 rebounds per-36 minutes, although his actual per-game averages come out to less because he’s only called upon for 19.7 minutes per night. Howard makes the most of that time, however, and while his on-off numbers have been negatively impacted by the Lakers’ bench’s struggles without a facilitator over the last few weeks, he’s still been setting screens with verve, switching onto smaller players and rebounding like a madman, being exactly the type of star is his role he’s so fond of saying every player on the team needs to be.
When he finally arrives at his locker, Howard is a walking book of inspirational quotes, a motivational speech given human form. A player who has had the majority of his public persona defined by his often sophomoric humor doesn’t want to joke, turning philosophical in response to every question, deliberately shifting from a mascot who made the basketball team into an elegant spokesperson who tries to deliver every statement as an Instagram-worthy caption that wouldn’t look out of place coming from a self-help guru.
“We stay prepared, so we don’t have to get prepared when it’s time to,” Howard says in one such statement on the Lakers’ team-wide readiness to step up when called upon to do more than normal. Most of his thoughts, no matter the question, turn back to how focused this team is on their goal of winning a championship. Keep in mind, he says all of this stuff you’re about to read in a singular, approximately five-minute period after one game, but it’s similar to his thoughts almost every time he’s asked.
Howard constantly points out how every moment matters, and that’s when it’s easy to see why he moves in such an un-rushed fashion following games. He almost lost out on the chance to play basketball this season, and now, with a Lakers team that’s 33-7, he has a chance to win the championship that’s eluded him to this point. It’s what he — over and over again in postgame Q-and-A’s that nearly all blend together in their singular focus — highlights as what’s driving him, and an entire Lakers team with something the prove.
“Every day we feel like that’s the championship. Every practice, every time we’re in the weight room, it’s always about a championship,” Howard says. “That’s the mentality that we want to have. We want to set a standard here in LA. Every day is about winning a championship.”
Howard also constantly wants to make it clear that he’s not the only one that feels that way.
“We’ve got a team full of guys that can play basketball and that’s hungry for a championship, and when everybody is hungry, get out the way,” Howard says. “We believe in each and every one of our teammates, and we love what everybody is bringing to this team. Everybody on this team provides something that we all need for us to win, and it’s a beautiful feeling to have that.”
It’s another quote that would make even an overzealous middle school coach blush with the level of coachspeak required to deliver it. But for Howard, this all feels genuine. He nearly had the game he loves ripped away from him, and it’s clear he never wants to let that happen again, and is appreciative of every chance he gets to play.
“I’m just thankful. I’m grateful. Every time I step on the court, I just want to give this team 135%,” Howard says, dropping cliches more prolifically than he rebounds, and really getting rolling now. “Get every rebound, try to block every shot, try to make sure I get all my guys open, just bring the energy every single night. I just want to keep that up, just take advantage of every moment I have to play this game.”
Howard is still clearly enjoying the process. Before the game against the Cavaliers, he took a cell phone from the scorer’s table and recorded video (or pretended to) of LeBron’s signature chalk toss. When James sat out during the Lakers’ most recent road trip, Howard filled in for him with a chalk toss of his own.
That kind of joking and silliness was always celebrated when Howard’s teams were winning, but used as a cudgel to imply he didn’t take things seriously enough when his teams lost. His approach clearly wore on teammates in some spots. Maybe that’s why Howard seems a little caught off guard when asked by a reporter if this is the most fun he’s ever had on a basketball court, and delivers his most candor of the evening in one of his more introspective and revealing remarks of the season.
“I just think that it’s more accepted. A lot of times in the past it wasn’t accepted for guys to have fun like this on the court, but I think what it’s showing is just pure joy,” Howard began, and the rest of his answer is worth reading, uninterrupted.
“For me, this is like my sanctuary. For an artist, when they want to show how thankful they are, they make music. For a basketball player, it’s on the court. When we’re on the court, of course we take it serious, but it’s fun. We’re doing something that we love for fun, and we want to have fun doing it.
“We don’t take it for granted, we’re not out there BS-ing around, but we enjoy playing basketball with each other. We enjoy watching each other thrive, and I think when you have a team full of brothers that enjoy picking their brother up and seeing them be their best version of themselves, it just makes the team chemistry, the team morale, it just boosts it.
“I love the fact that all of us have fun. I love to see the joy in our eyes, in the fans’ eyes. Every time we step on the floor, it just gives us more energy.”
It’s not hard, while listening to Howard, to hear exactly why his journey and messages have resonated so soundly with his teammates, or why he’s become so quickly beloved. He genuinely appears to have went through a dark time amidst injuries and, for the first time in his whole life, real basketball rejection.
Howard has come out the other side seemingly stronger, more focused and sure of himself than ever before. It’s easy to see when he steps on the court, and even easier to hear if you can just wait a little while for him to speak. You’ll just have to excuse the delay, because Howard isn’t in a rush to be done. With any of this.
All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.