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'B---h,' please: Dwight Howard challenges Laker fan to fight over postgame heckle

Dan Devine
Senior NBA writer
Dwight Howard tries to tune out the noise. (AP)
Dwight Howard tries to tune out the noise. (AP)

To some fans, Dwight Howard’s ill-fated one-season stint with the Los Angeles Lakers might seem like a lifetime ago. Judging by one heckling fan’s commentary after the Lakers’ 109-94 pasting of Howard’s Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night, though, time has neither healed all the wounds of Howard’s tumultuous season in Hollywood nor made Dwight any less prickly about John Q. Public calling him a “bitch” from the comfort of the Staples Center stands:

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The postgame beef comes to us, as it always seems to, via TMZ Sports:

Howard was on his way back to the locker room after scoring 19 points with nine rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal in 33 1/2 minutes of floor time. He did the bulk of that damage early, though, and it wasn’t nearly enough to overcome a Lakers squad that, even without injured starters D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle, continues to roast opponents behind the second unit of guards Lou Williams (21 points, five assists, four rebounds) and Jordan Clarkson (18 points, five assists, four rebounds, two steals), big men Larry Nance Jr. (12 points, 10 rebounds, three assists) and Tarik Black (seven points, eight rebounds, two steals, two blocks), and rookie swingman Brandon Ingram (seven points, eight rebounds).

The result on the floor — Atlanta’s fifth loss in six games, a stretch during which Mike Budenholzer’s club has been outscored by nearly 10 points per 100 possessions and has fielded far and away the NBA’s least effective offense — probably left Howard ticked off enough on its own. Some dude leaning down from the seats to curse at him, as it turned out, did not make Howard feel any better! He responded by giving the trolling fan precisely what he was looking for: attention, in the form of an invitation to come down to the floor level and say it to the face of the 6-foot-11, 265-pound eight-time All-Star. Thanks to the intercession of security personnel — and, in all likelihood, both parties’ relative lack of actual interest in scrapping — that didn’t come to pass, and Howard made his way back to the visiting locker room.

The post-game incident was the culmination of an evening full of vitriol directed by Lakers fans at Howard, whose arrival in L.A. in the summer of 2012 to team with Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol promised far more fun than it delivered, as an expected juggernaut disappointingly turned into a first-round-sweep victim after a chaotic campaign that featured coaching changes, loads of buyer’s remorse, deflected blame, all manner of health problems, and seemingly constant reports of in-fighting before Howard decided to skip town and head to the Houston Rockets. (The honeymoon there didn’t last long, either.) All night long, Howard heard boos whenever he touched the ball and cheers when he fouled up … although, naturally, he insisted after the game that he didn’t really hear any of it:

We might believe you, Dwight, if you hadn’t had such a long and well-established history of hearing and responding to so many slings and arrows from the grandstand. (And if, y’know, it was actually possible to close your ears.)

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Whether Howard plays into it or not, that antipathy is there, and even three years after his exit, it shows no signs of abating, according to Bill Oram of the Orange County Register:

[…] if anyone believed that this game would be anything other than Dwight vs. Everyone He Burned, that his returns to L.A. will ever be, his former fans quickly dispelled the notion.

Howard is the Lakers’ lone nemesis. No matter how far removed he is from his season here, nor how good the Lakers become, no one else in the NBA comes close. This core is too young to have developed rivals and Larry Bird retired some time ago.

It is only Howard, the smiling face atop the broad shoulders that could not carry very much at all, unto whom fans can unleash their rage.

In all likelihood, they’ll unleash it no matter how Dwight responds to it. This particular course of action, though? Well, let’s just say I don’t expect Howard to hear fewer curses lobbed his way next time he’s in L.A.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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