On the most recent edition of Zach Lowe’s podcast The Lowe Post, Lowe gave an interesting anecdote regarding Dwight Howard’s popularity in Atlanta last season:
“I’ve heard multiple stories of Hawks players learning about the trade and screaming with jubilation into their phones.”
Kevin Arnovitz, Lowe’s guest on the pod, didn’t sound remotely surprised, responding with a simple: “Yes.”
Lowe continued:
“You ask why, and one account was: Dwight would give these speeches before the game about how everyone’s playing hard, we want unity, and then go out and plays, a blah game where he demands post touches and doesn’t rotate as hard as he could. And everyone’s like: ‘well why are you speaking?'” </em
Arnovitz added his own tidbit:
“As one person inside the locker room told me: ‘Do you know hard it is to make Dennis Schröder the good guy in an internecine warfare between players?'”
Since the end of his days of dominance with the Orlando Magic, Howard has played with the Lakers, Rockets and Hawks. It feels like, amongst his teammates, he’s been an unpopular player with all of those teams.
This offseason, Howard was traded to the Charlotte Hornets for Marco Belinelli and Miles Plumlee.
