Howard’s father tired of the feud between him and Kobe Bryant
The never-ending carousel that is the feud between Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant has reached a new low—now Dwight Howard’s father is intervening by telling his son to settle things and move on.
The elder Howard has a reason to be tired of the feud—it all began early in the season when Kobe tossed a few backhanded comments on Howard’s capabilities on the court and things quickly went downhill from there. It is no wonder that the Lakers are underperforming this year, they’ve gone from a winning franchise to a soap opera in a matter of months.
Tired of seeing his son get messed up in a season-long squabble with Bryant, the elder Howard voiced his opinion to the media.
“I told him before he said it publicly, ‘It’s your career. No person can say what you need to do or not do. You can’t worry about what Kobe or anybody else says,’ ” Howard’s father told the paper. “Nobody can say what Kobe said — that’s stepping into another man’s shoes. I understand what Kobe was trying to do, but he went about it the wrong way. He’s trying to win a championship. But Dwight has to tell Kobe, ‘I appreciate your opinion, but that doesn’t matter. We’re two men on this team. We need to be reasonable about this.’ ”
Dwight’s father did not just stop there, he even took it a few steps farther and openly criticized the coach for not putting a stop to the feud between Bryant and Howard. While the elder Howard has a point and he certainly has the right to voice his opinion, this whole situation is reminiscent of the pony league rather than the big league.
Howard’s father is not the only person exasperated by this ordeal, Kobe has been very vocal on the whole issue telling the media that he is tired of the controversy and it needs to end.
“Honestly, I’m done talking about it. There’s nothing to talk about. I’m done with it. There’s nothing to discuss. It’s silly,” he said Saturday.
Dwight spoke for himself on the remarks by his father, and said very little on the matter although he has certainly had a lot to say to Kobe over the past few months.
“My dad is a grown man. That’s how he feels. We’ll leave it at that.” Dwight said.
Hopefully an end can be reached before the drama escalates, the Lakers are sliding farther down the standings as they continue to underperform as the team chemistry falls apart. They are adults after all, can’t they settle their differences themselves before the team falls into the basement of the Western Conference?
