Center Dwight Howard playing for the Taoyuan Leopards last year.
Legendary NBA center Robert Parish was once asked about knowing when it was time to retire. It could be argued that few are as familiar with the subject as Parish, who played 18 seasons in the league (14 with the Celtics) before tacking on two role-player seasons in his 40s with the Hornets, and one final season with Michael Jordan’s Bulls.
Parish said he knew it was time to go when his body stopped cooperating with his brain.
“I noticed a big difference in my level of play,” he told the Guardian earlier this year. “A big, big difference. Even in practices. I’d be kicking a— in practice but then it takes me another four-to-six practices to kick that same a— again! That’s another telltale sign it’s time to retire – when a player that is not on your level is giving you the business and you can’t do sh— about it.”
But what happens when you can still do something about it? What happens when you’re an NBA star who still is physically up to contributing to a team, who is willing to accept a lesser role, but who somehow can’t get a job anymore?
We’ve seen this play out in the NBA recent years, and the current example is that of Dwight Howard, forced into exile ahead of his own schedule, by a league that too quickly tossed him aside. And the primary reason he was tossed aside—because he was a coaching headache who made mistakes in his youth—does not speak well of the NBA and its inbred front-office structures.
Howard came to a bad ending in Orlando more than a decade ago, during which time he demanded and rescinded a handful of trade requests, he bad-mouthed coach Stan Van Gundy and he offended a whole swath of NBA employees and observers with his outright disdain for the Magic and the city. He was also a very young (25-26), wealthy and spoiled man at the time, one who has been appropriately humbled over the years.
NBA Owners, Execs ‘Did Not Forget’ Howard’s Past
Last week, Howard went to Golden State in search of a job with the Warriors. He had a good resume on hand, and not just from his heyday as an Orlando Magic superstar. Late in his career, Howard simply was glad to be in the NBA, and acted as such, filling whatever gaps he was asked to fill. As if to prove the point, Howard spent part of last year playing in Taiwan, in a low-rent situaiton that showed how much he really just wants to be on a basketball court.
In 2019-20, at age 34, Howard willingly took on a backup role for the Lakers behind JaVale McGee, coming off the bench for 67 of his 69 appearances that season. And he fulfilled the role admirably, averaging 7.5 points and 7.3 rebounds in 18.9 minutes per game, adding 1.1 blocked shots per game, as the Lakers won a championship.
Howard had a similarly productive stop in Philadelphia (7.0 points and 8.4 rebounds in 17.3 minutes) and another back in L.A. (6.2 points, 5.9 rebounds, 16.2 minutes). He’d put his Superman persona well behind him, and had established himself as a very useful veteran bench piece.
And then … nothing. After the 2020-21 season, Howard suddenly could not get a job. DeAndre Jordan had a job. Andre Drummond had a job. Bismack Biyombo had a job. Dwight Howard? Nope.
I asked an Eastern Conference executive about Howard’s inability to get a job.
“It’s not that he can’t play, there are probably 50, maybe 75 players who Dwight Howard is better than,” the exec said. “Maybe 100. But there are a lot of guys who are in positions of power in the NBA who are friends with Stan who never forgave Dwight Howard, even if Stan did. There are a lot of guys who are close with Otis Smith (the former Magic GM) who never forgave Dwight for how he treated Otis. A lot of owners were disgusted by how he was to the DeVos family (in Orlando). Most of those guys re still around and they did not forget. Dwight is not the same guy he used to be, but there are a lot of people in the league who will always see him that way and hold him to it.”
Which is silly. Howard has shown that, when given a chance, he will quietly play a role, and do it quite nicely. His body has not yet broken down as Parish’s did—Parish was in his early 40s then. Yet here is Howard, is being made to go begging for work around the NBA.
And in the end, thanks to a notoriously stubborn NBA power structure, still remaining unemployed.