Getty LeBron James sitting with Dwight Howard, Anthony Davis & Russell Westbrook.
The Los Angeles Lakers roster is up to 13, which means they only have two spots left to sign players. General manager Rob Pelinka recently came out and said that they’d like to use one of those spots to add a center.
While The Athletic’s Jovan Buha reported on July 9 that Christian Wood and Bismack Biyombo are being considered by Los Angeles, there are other options available. Former LeBron James teammate on the Cleveland Cavaliers and current ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins believes that two former Lakers big men should be considered, including eight-time All-Star Dwight Howard.
“No one had a better offseason than the Los Angeles Lakers from what they started with a year ago,” Perkins said on the July 10 episode of NBA Today. “Now, do they need to finish it? Absolutely. And they need to go out and they need to either re-sign Tristan Thompson and bring him back or go out and get a guy that won the NBA championship for you … and I know he’s older, but it’s always great to have an adult in the room that’s gonna know his role in a guy like Dwight Howard.
“I feel like that would also be a perfect fit. But as far as Rob Pelinka, he did his thang, he did his thang.”
During his prime, Howard was one of the best players in the NBA. He made eight-straight All-Star teams from 2007 to 2014 and was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year three times, which is tied for second-most in NBA history. However, he couldn’t land with an NBA team last season and decided to play for the Taoyuan Leopards of the T1 League in Taiwan. Despite the year away, he appears to eyeing a return to the NBA.
Dwight Howard Still Feels Connected to the Los Angeles Lakers
Dwight Howard has spent three seasons with the Lakers across three different stints. The most notable came during the 2019-20 season when he won his first NBA title. Though his longest stint was the eight seasons he spent with the Orlando Magic, he feels like he has a special connection to Los Angeles. In a July 6 interview with Zion Olojede of Complex, Howard discusses his connection to the team.
“It’s been crazy. It’s been crazy, but it’s just for some reason we just clicked,” Howard told Complex. “I don’t know, you could have a little girlfriend or whatever and it’s just, y’all done been together, y’all done broke up. You done tried other girlfriends but it’s just some type of connection y’all got.
“That’s how we feel about the Lakers. Man, it’s just something that we got this connection. I don’t know. It got to work. It got to work. But I do love the Lakers, man. We had the championship run there and I wish we would’ve had a chance to keep going because that was the squad right there. We had everything. We had everything.”
“I know in my prime… it’s a wrap.”
Dwight Howard explains why he’s better than Jokic in his prime.
Dwight Howard Has 5 Teams He Would Play For
Dwight Howard is 37 now and could be nearing the end of his career. He doesn’t appear to have much interest in playing for teams not ready to contend. He listed five teams that he would like to play for next season and all of them were in the playoffs recently.
“Okay, you got Miami Heat,” Howard told Complex. “You got obviously, the Lakers. The Warriors. The Kings. But the Kings, I would say the Kings got a couple centers so they probably wouldn’t. But the Kings. The Hawks. I’m from Atlanta, go back home with the Hawks.”