With the Los Angeles Lakers facing the Houston Rockets for the first time this season on Friday, a lot of attention has been be surrounded around Dwight Howard and the fallout between he and the Lakers in the 2012-2013 season.
After Dwight publicly addressed the situation earlier this week, claiming that it’s time for everyone to move on, Lakers head coach Mike D’Antoni echoed some of those same sentiments after Lakers practice today via Mark Medina of L.A. Daily News:
Mike D’Antoni on Dwight: “We would’ve loved for him to stay. It didn’t work out.”
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) November 6, 2013
While D’Antoni does agree that it is time to move on, he still wasn’t shy about voicing his opinion of how the Lakers did everything they could to appease to Dwight. Kobe Bryant conceded to being a playmaker in order to help Dwight get more touches, and Pau Gasol accepted a lesser role (even coming off the bench at times) for the greater good of the team.
For D’Antoni, he also believed that he adjusted his system to cater to Dwight. All in all, Dwight still found a reason to leave despite his efforts, and oddly enough, D’Antoni thinks that a lot of the things that Houston is doing to integrate Dwight are some the same things the Lakers did via Medina:
Mike D,’Antoni on Dwight leaving partly bc of his system: “Strange they’re doing the exact same thing here that we tried to do.”
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) November 6, 2013
This would ultimately suggest that the issues with Dwight were beyond the x’s and o’s, and that it was simply best that he and the Lakers part ways for the greater good of both sides.
