This is the problem with bringing in clubhouse cancers, no matter the talent, size or potential behind the malignancy. This is why LeBron James became an even better player — an NBA champion — once he became a better guy. This is why the seductive power of the beautiful and the powerful is a siren song leading nowhere good if not counterbalanced by some character, some introspection, some maturity.
In NBA terms, Dwight Howard is as beautiful and powerful as they come. He’s a 6-foot-11, 265-pound force of basketball nature who, at 27 years old, is already one of the league’s two most physically gifted players. That alluring fact was on display Sunday, when he tied a career high with 26 rebounds in a loss to the Denver Nuggets.
But even before Monday's news that a torn labrum will sideline Howard indefinitely, it was already clear that Howard is also every bit the cancer his ego-fueled, one-man circus in Orlando the past few years told us he was. That fact was rammed down the throats of Lakers fans everywhere with Monday’s New York Daily News report, attributed to a source, that Howard had to be restrained from fighting Kobe Bryant following a New Year Day’s loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
The beautiful and the powerful can be tempting to those of us living in the real world, a balm to our everydayness and our grounded ways. At least until they realize the sun and moon and stars do not in fact revolve around them. And then comes the hard jolt of fact: Beautiful, brilliant and powerful people can also be so self-absorbed and unmoored from the niceties of everyday life that it turns out their contempt, lack of self-awareness and destructive insouciance are their actual defining traits.
That was on display this past weekend, too, with Howard. It has been on display all season long if you’ve known where to look. It was on display in the worst way if he really wanted to fight one of the greatest Lakers of all time after a loss. Trying to fight Kobe Bryant? We can't say for sure what happened in that locker room, but it’s looking a lot like Dwight Howard is a malignancy that not even Kobe Bryant can overcome, outwit or overcompensate for.
This past weekend, before the reported New Year’s altercation with Kobe came to light, Howard first complained about friendship issues among the Lakers, as if playing Parcheesi with Pau, Kobe and Nash or organizing a group karaoke outing could fix the team’s problems.
“Those guys on the Clippers team, they really enjoy each other off the court, and it shows,” Howard told ESPN. “It’s something we have to do to get better. We have to play like we like each other. Even if we don't want to be friends off the court, whatever that may be, when we step in between the lines or we step in the locker room or the gym, we have to respect each other and what we bring to the table.”
When I read this, my jaw nearly dropped to the floor. It was a level of hypocrisy so strong it would be funny if it weren’t directly at odds with the Lakers’ desperate need to start winning, right now, today. The very thing Howard was bemoaning is one of his singular failures, but, of course, hypocrites often find in others the faults actually simmering in themselves.
The Lakers are 15-18, putting them at a very underachieving 11th in the Western Conference. Forget whether the Lakers can get on a roll and earn some home-court advantage in the playoffs. It’s time to start worrying about making the postseason at all.
That’s a crisis, and in a crisis your leaders, your talent, your high-priced stars must be the ones to calm the troops and instill a sense of confidence. They must rally around the lesser mortals among them. They must support coaches who are certainly embattled in the hope it makes their jobs easier.
But not Dwight Howard. No, that’s not in his arsenal. How could it be? He’s finding out the universe does not revolve around him, that the laws of physics and reality do not in fact suspend themselves because he’s not happy, so forget everyone else. Let’s attack the star player instead. Let’s talk about how the losing coming from a lack of friendship. Let’s spread that blame around far and wide.
It’s the “like each other” comments that really tell the tale. Perhaps no one likes Dwight because the Lakers locker room revolves around the idea of championships rather than overgrown, uber-talented children playing at basketball to soothe their needy egos.
Last month, when Steve Nash returned from injury to lead the Lakers to a dazzling and much-needed win over the Golden State Warriors, I stood in an ebullient Lakers locker room. They —
