THE MELLOW move to HOUSTON. Admin.knowe knone. Dwight Howard: ‘It’s a clean slate for me. It’s a fresh start,’ Dwight Howard prayed. He needed just one more push, one more reason. He needed a sign. Howard had a decision to make. Time was running out. He wanted it to feel right. For all the information given him in all those meetings in Los Angeles, all the travails along the way to this moment and all the arguments careening in his head, he just needed something, one last piece of evidence, to be at peace with his choice. “It was on the Fourth of July,” Howard said. “That’s when I felt it was Houston. I was in Colorado. It seemed like every person that I met was from Houston. It was just so ironic. I’d walk around. Someone would ask for a picture. They’d give me a business card and it would say Houston on it. I was like, “Is everybody in Colorado from Houston right now?’ It was unbelievable. “I was like, ‘You know what, this has to be from God.’ You pray for things to happen. You pray for signs, for God to show you things. It just seemed like, this was it.” A day after his decision was final, Howard was as relieved as Rockets general manager Daryl Morey was elated, as content as he could have imagined. The tough part, the decision and the conversations that followed when he told representatives of the Mavericks, Hawks, Warriors and especially the Lakers, was over. The anxiety of his controversial, injury-marred final season in Orlando and frustrating one season in Los Angeles were behind him. He felt empowered to have made the choice that he considered best for him, rather than to please others. He finally had no second thoughts, no regrets. While much as been made of the state of the Rockets a year, clearing out the roster for the moves they hoped would come, Howard was coming off back surgery, confined almost entirely to a bed or recliner, venturing out only for a one-block walk around his hotel home. But he too was making plans. “When I had the back surgery, the one thing I kept envisioning was holding up that (championship) trophy,” Howard said. “Every day in the gym, before I even got an opportunity to run, I just envisioned myself holding that trophy. That’s what gave me the drive to want to get up and get back to basketball. Even though physically, I might not have been all the way there, I wanted to get back into it so bad. “For the first four months I couldn’t do anything but lay on my back and walk. I watched as the Heat won and I sat in that room. I was just so upset. I just hated that taste, that bad taste of getting to The Finals and watching somebody else win. I wanted to win.” To Howard, no consideration meant more to him when he weighed his options this week than “championship potential.” He had been moved by the conversations with Hakeem Olajuwon and excited by the plan described by Kevin McHale. He said his private conversation with Rockets owner Leslie Alexander might have meant more than even all the talks with Chandler Parsons and James Harden. But the greatest issue, he said, was the chance to win championships. When The Finals ended this season, Parsons watched the Heat celebrate and sent Howard a text that read, “Come to Houston. That could be us.” Howard, however, said that he could not stand watching another championship won by another team. “What he said, he was on point,” Howard said. “But I tried not to watch The Finals because it (ticked) me off to point I would get mad, start, crying. I was so upset because I worked extremely hard. I’ve been to the Finals. I’ve tasted it. I’ve seen that trophy. I’ve been four games away from winning a championship. It hurt to watch other people win. I was like, ‘Man, I hate to see other people win this championship.’ I’m so passionate about it. When he said that, I know he wants to win, but if there’s anybody that wants the trophy it’s me. “The biggest thing was a championship potential. I watched the team after we got out of the playoffs. I looked at their team. I looked at a couple teams. Their team just stood out. I think this is the best fit for me as far as playing basketball. I’m looking forward to it.” Howard had gotten the feeling that in Houston, he would be welcomed to the club of great big men, from Elvin Hayes to Moses Malone, Ralph Sampson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming. Olajuwon’s influence was especially crucial. Howard has worked with Olajuwon in past off- seasons and will again, and while he hopes to be able to mimic some of Olajuwon’s moves and success, he already had the impression down. “It meant a lot, just having Hakeem show up from Jordan,” Howard said. “He’s a great guy. We’ve had opportunities in the past to get together. He’s been one of my biggest supporters. I really thank Hakeem. I trust his judgment. I trust a lot of things he says. He’s been good from the first day he talked to my mom and said he wanted to work with me. I would work out with him and he would do a move and I would do a move and instead of the hook shot, I would dunk it and he would jump up and down and scream and say, “Oooh, you do my move better than me. Dwight, you have to do this is a game.’ We would just laugh. It was so great to be around him. “I’m looking forward to having him and Kevin McHale push me. When I sat down with Kevin, he reminded me a lot of the drive of Clifford Ray (a former Magic assistant coach) when Clifford rare was my big man coach. He pushed me to the limit every day and then I worked out. He always said, ‘I’m going to kick your (butt)’ and at the end of the day give you a hug.” Howard’s NBA career was blossoming then, long before his uncertainty about remaining in Orlando and the backlash and effort to join Kobe Bryant’s Lakers’ and style. In Houston, he said he can be himself again. He felt accepted from the friendships with Parsons and Harden, including Friday’s visit with Harden to plot their future together, and from the knowledge of the Rockets’ long pursuit of him. “Even sitting down with James last night, we had an opportunity to talk about us winning the championship and how it’s important that we, as leaders of the team, are on the same page and of one accord. Everybody else will fall in line. It starts with me and him. We took the egos out of it and we’ll have a great season. “I chose to go to Houston. I wasn’t traded. I was just like I had an opportunity to do something for myself and it wasn’t anybody’s else’s choice. It wasn’t a friend or fans or based off anybody but myself. In Orlando, I wanted to do everything for everybody else and I wasn’t happy inside with what I did. I just wanted to see everybody else happy. This time, I wanted to make myself happy and get back to being who I am.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 00:39:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015