Lakers News: Dwight Howard Recruiting Yet Another Former MVP To Taiwan

The 2020 LA champ is continuing his career abroad.

Three-time Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard, who played his most recent (and perhaps last-ever) NBA game for LA in 2022, is at it again!

The 2020 NBA champ, an eight-time All-Star, three-time Defensive Player of the Year, and sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer, has made a habit since joining Taiwanese club the Taoyuan Leopards last fall of trying to recruit NBA greats overseas, generally with a bit of a wink, knowing that most of them still have opportunities stateside. 

Howard's latest target? 2018 MVP James Harden, who was a teammate of Howard's on the Houston Rockets from 2013-16. Though things started off fairly well for the duo, who got as far as the 2015 Western Conference Finals in their time together, they had bot soured on each other after a first round exit in 2016. Howard was subsequently flipped to his hometown Atlanta Hawks that summer.

Harden has since demanded to be traded from every team he's been on, from the Rockets in 2020 to the Brooklyn Nets in 2022 and now the Philadelphia 76ers in 2023. 

During an event for Adidas sportswear in China earlier this week, Harden branded Sixers team president Daryl Morey (who had brought both Howard and Harden to Houston as the head honcho there) as a "liar," for whom he vowed to never play again -- despite having just opted into the final year of his $35.6 million contract with Philly earlier this summer, in the hopes of Morey negotiating a trade to ship him out of town. It's unclear exactly what Harden thinks Morey is lying about, whether it was a promise to trade him (which Harden quickly undercut by reportedly exclusively wanting to be flipped to the Los Angeles Clippers), a promise to give the soon-to-be-34-year-old a long-term maximum extension despite his frequently underwhelming playoff output, or something else.

"Aye James I’m about to buy a team, you can be the franchise player and a partner 🤷🏾‍♂️ forget 84 you gone score 100 😂," Howard wrote on his Instagram account. "Come on you already in Asia just stay right there it’s a shorter flight to Taiwan 😅."

There's no doubt Harden could put up astronomical numbers in a league with inferior competition. But the guy also averaged 21 points on .441/.385/.867 shooting splits, 10.7 assists and 6.1 rebounds across 58 regular season games last year. He's got way too much juice to go international just yet, a reality of which Howard is no doubt aware.

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