Dwight Howard received a lot of criticism for how his free agency panned out yesterday, his eventual departure from the Los Angeles Lakers and agreement with the Houston Rockets had been labeled part of the ‘Dwightmare’ by fans and the media.
Heck, after the way the media acted on the night you’d be forgiven for thinking he was announcing his decision on an ESPN special.
Haha! Dwight Howard is so indecisive and immature! Haha! Not even Dwight knows where’s he’s going! Tell us your decision Dwight, tell us!
But what did Dwight do, exactly?
He entered free agency, made it clear he was visiting multiple teams and then told the media when he would make a decision (Friday).
Then he went to all the meetings (including the awkward ones), gave each team fair time, took two days to make his decision and then spoke to every team to let them know his decision before finally announcing his move to the Rockets.
That actually sounds exactly like how any pro sportsman should conduct himself in free agency.
But that’s not the circus we saw last night, was it?
When USA Today’s Sam Amick broke the news early that Dwight had chosen the Rockets, the flood gates opened.
The media contacted everybody they could to get confirmation, instead what they got was Dwight’s agent denying a decision had been made, the Rocket’s general manager telling us he’d heard nothing from Dwight, and the news that Howard was in fact flying to LA to have another meeting with the Lakers (unbeknownst to Lakers GM Mitch Kupachak).
Finally we got a report that now, Dwight is in fact 50/50 between the Lakers and the Rockets.
Que the outrage at the ‘flip-flopping’ Howard and the jokes, and the hate.
The one thing all the above reports had in common, including the initial report from Amick — although his sources were proved right at the end — was that none of it came from Dwight Howard himself.
Yes, you could argue that it was Howard’s ‘people’ who were to blame for feeding the media bogus stories of his indecisiveness, but the fact is instead of questioning the initial report, or the sources, everybody jumped on the Howard blame train and rode it into absurdity.
It wasn’t Howard who was the source in the initial report, or Howard the source of any of the others.
But fans and media were happy to slap their knees and crack the same unoriginal joke at the star’s expense like they had just exposed him for the obvious fraud that he is.
Perhaps it was because most already disliked Howard for his character on and off the court, perhaps it was because most are wary and sick of big free agents milking all the media attention, but the fact is Dwight Howard didn’t do anything wrong during this free agent period.
He took his time making his decision, made an effort to let all the other parties know that he chose not to sign with them and then announced the decision on his own terms.
It wasn’t Howard’s indecisiveness and immaturity that was exposed last night, it was the media and fan’s spite.
Criticise him for his play, criticise him for his off-court antics, please, but you cannot criticise him for how he conducted himself in free agency.
Also, nobody cares that Kobe unfollowed him on Twitter, how is that news?
(I make some rather broad generalisations about the media above, but Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski has been fantastic this free agency period. Credit where credit is due.)
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