I’ll preface this rant/whiny hissy fit by saying that I know that people have complained in the past that I write about the Orlando Magic too much, and a lot of people don’t really give a crap about my favorite NBA team. So to make up for that, I’ve included a bunch of GIFs of my favorite ladies, so you can just skip ahead to that if you don’t give a sh*t about my butthurt opinions.
That said, I originally had about 2,700 words written about last night’s Orlando Magic game that I attended, and how I felt about Dwight Howard in a Lakers jersey returning to the arena that was built for him. But he’s not worth that many words. He’s really not even worth the 127 words that I had written up to this point.
You see, there’s a huge flaw in David Stern’s NBA, one that he’s never going to change and one that I don’t expect his eventual replacement, Adam Silver, to change. Apparel companies make the decisions for today’s stars, except in very isolated situations like LeBron James moving to Miami, because that dude can do whatever the f*ck he wants. Adidas wanted Howard in Brooklyn and that’s why he demanded that the Magic trade him there for Brooz Lopez, who allowed Spencer Hawes to look like, well, Dwight Howard the other night. That’s why Howard still complains to this day about not being traded to the Nets, even while he plays for the Lakers.
Howard finally admitted the other day that he pissed all over the Magic franchise and its fans for a year and a half because he was trying his best to make sure people didn’t hate him. He wanted to leave Orlando – which he is allowed to do – but he wanted to make sure that Magic fans didn’t hate him for not fulfilling his promise that he’d bring a championship to the middle market town that loves to pretend it’s big time. If you know even one sports fan, then you know that’s impossible.
All Howard ever had to do was say, “Otis Smith built a team that couldn’t get the job done, so I’d like to move on.” It would have stung so badly to have been served that reality so harshly, but could I have blamed him? Nope. Not at all. He would have been 100% right, and at the same time he could have pointed to that quote any time an irrational Magic fan like myself called him an A-hole for leaving.
Instead, like most young millionaire athletes, Howard lets his friends and family make his decisions for him, which is a huge mistake that will cost him in the end. But that’s his problem to deal with and his lesson to learn. In the meantime, according to a lot of media types that aren’t worth a link, I’m an awful person for booing Howard last night, and that’s something that I’ll have to come to grips with. At least Howard was able to be an adult about it all.
My friend Brian Serra wrote about how Magic fans need to get over Howard already, and he’s right. Howard isn’t worth anyone’s time, unless they’re paying him for it. But It’s especially important that we, as sports fans, remember that we are not allowed to dislike athletes because they lie to us and leave. Unless they lie to fans of big market teams, in which case it means more page views and then we can talk about it all the time.
Also, I had originally recorded video of Magic fans booing Howard, and it was much louder than that video at the top makes it seem (and he was booed the entire game despite what some sites have published) but I accidentally deleted it while trying to take pictures of these two European guys who were sitting next to me.
I nicknamed them Croakus and Peen, because like Howard, I am not an adult. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good shot of them because I’m also an idiot.
Now, I believe that I mentioned attractive women.
