Time to separate the pros from the cons
The platinum from the bronze
That butter soft sh*t from that leather on the FonzJay-Z (feat: Biggie Smalls) “Brooklyn’s Finest”
That is old Jay-Z, before he became JAY-Z. I always remember those lines when I am trying to decipher the truth from BS. You deal with a lot of BS when covering athletes for a living. I understand it, because everyone can’t be Charles Barkley. If you say or do the wrong thing 100000000 outlets run the story and it can ruin your reputation, endorsements and in some cases cause you to be unemployed.
It is why I ignore a lot of athlete statements that I know are blatantly false.
If they aren’t relevant to anything important, no need to bust their bubble. The only time that rule is broken, is when an athletes flaunts their hypocrisy in people’s faces. That is what got Dwight Howard in trouble.
The best way I can explain what happened to Dwight Howard is like this. He was like a Catholic School girl who was locked up and sheltered all of her life. Then her father sent her off to the University of Florida when Aaron Hernandez was there. She got out of her father’s SUV with a long skirt on and a cross on her chest. By the end of the 1st semester she was stripping at a place called ONYX and had taken Tim Tebow’s virginity.
When she went home for the Holidays, she tried very hard to fool her father that she was still Daddy’s little girl, but the life had taken a hold of her.
After a certain point everyone knew, but she kept pretending to the point that people were confused who she was trying to fool, her dad or herself.
When Dwight was drafted by the Magic, all that stuff about him being a virgin, wanting the cross for the logo and wanting everyone to be a christian was all true and then this happened then he met Royce Reed.
Listen, it happens to the best of us. If you have never eaten cake before, sometimes you fall in love with that first piece you are given and have a sweet tooth for life.
There is nothing wrong with having multiple sides of your personality, it shows that you are real. People can see through fakeness, it is just a matter of time. When you spend so much time trying to protect an image that doesn’t exist anymore, you just dig yourself a bigger hole.
It was clear that toward the end of Dwight Howard’s time in Orlando he was thinking about leaving. The #1 problem he had back then was that he wanted so badly to keep this image that no even cared about, he ended up making decisions based off a fake persona than his real self. He was like Chris Rock’s character in CB4.
I knew Dwight Howard had multiple baby mamas years before I actually posted it on BSO, but there was no reason in my mind to post that. He wasn’t the first athlete to have a bunch of kids no one knew about and he wouldn’t be the last. It was only until he decided to opt-in to his final year of his contract with the Magic and spoke about how loyal person he was that I felt it was relevant.
Which brings me to another Jay-Z line:
“There is only so long, fake thugs can pretend”
People thought I was crazy, they didn’t believe me, they said I was a fraud, not Mr. Christianity Dwight Howard. But, I saw the inner conflict going on. That’s just a lack of maturity. When you are a grown man, normally at your core you are going to do what you are going to do.
LeBron James did what he wanted to do. Kobe Bryant does what he wants to do. Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Carmelo and so many more did what they wanted to do and what they thought was best for them. It didn’t always go smoothly, but in the end they made the decision.
Dwight Howard was the one superstar that allowed how he is perceived and his desire to keep up this fake persona drive his decision-making.
Like most liars, he just kept digging himself a bigger and bigger hole. Once that happens nothing you do is ever good enough, people always going to see the negative and every single decision is going to be scrutinize because people know you are fake.
Clown acts are cute when you are young, but when you are a 27-year-old clown, people are going to start to be turned off by it.
The Lakers were probably the best thing that ever happened to Dwight Howard. You can hide in Orlando, you can’t hide in LA. They forced him to look himself in the mirror. No more BSing, no more ass kissing and no more kid gloves.
You are a man, you can’t worry about what I think you should do, what fans think you should do, what baby mamas, yes men and media want you to do. You have to do what you want to do.
I think finally after years, Dwight Howard has finally figured that out. You didn’t have to have Broussard sources to see Dwight didn’t like Kobe, Mike D’Antoni, some of the Lakers fans and media. He seemed miserable the majority of the time he was there. Maybe, old Dwight stays because no one leaves the Lakers, but new Dwight while still bumbling the decision, made the decision that was right for Dwight Howard.
Dwight wants to clown around with young guys in a market that has less stress than LA. No better place than Houston for that. They have an established star in James Harden who is as relaxed of a star as you can get, the exact opposite personality of a Kobe Bryant. Football rules Texas, basketball is secondary, he won’t be the center of attention.
Maybe it is time for us, myself included to stop trying to make Dwight Howard into something he isn’t. In the end, he is a big kid, who is a very good center that likes to have a lot of unprotected sex. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less. People adjust as they get older, but at their core they are who they are.
Dwight Howard will never be Shaq or Wilt or Karreem or Hakeem and etc, but that is ok.
I used to write things that I thought people wanted to hear and I would still get criticized. I was frustrated and was venting to a mentor of mine. I was frustrated because I didn’t understand what people wanted from me. He looked at me dead in the eye and said.
“You are going to be hated either way, might as well be hated being yourself than pretending to be someone you are not.”
The point was simple, you can’t please everyone.
Dwight doesn’t owe us any of us an explanation. He was a FREE AGENT, it was his contractual right to play for whoever he wanted and he chose to play for the Houston Rockets and we should respect that.
For once in his life, when he was in too deep (his time with Lakers), he decided pull out.