Dwight Howard, the eight-time NBA All-Star and three-time Defensive Player of the Year, is eyeing a return to the league.
He'd like to light the beam, too.
“I’m not retired from the NBA just yet,” Howard told The Sacramento Observer’s Mark Haynes. “I would love to help the Sacramento Kings contend for a title. Even though I believe their team is pretty much set.”
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Howard spent last season playing for the Taoyuan Leopards in Taiwan after an illustrious 18-year NBA career. He averaged 23.2 points and 16.2 rebounds in 34.9 minutes per game for the Leopards, who went 6-24 and finished last in the T1 League standings.
The Kings, under the guidance of new head coach Mike Brown, went from being the laughingstock of the NBA to legitimate playoff contenders. Sacramento, with its pair of All-Stars De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, snapped its 17-year playoff drought and took the defending champion Golden State Warriors to Game 7 in their first-round playoff series.
Brown established a winning culture in Sacramento not seen since Rick Adelman was roaming the bench in the early 2000s. He unanimously was named the 2022-23 NBA Coach of the Year.
"I like Mike Brown," Howard told Haynes. "I think he’s an amazing coach, and what he accomplished this year was very impressive."
NBA
Howard, who was the NBA's most dominant center at the peak of his career, will turn 38 years old in December. And even though the Kings are looking to find a backup center in the draft or free agency this summer, Howard is more likely to be back in Taiwan next season.