The Paradox of Dwight Howard
Wherever you stand on Howard, one thing’s clear: The man that claimed to be Superman has proven to be a mere mortal.
The quality of few sporting events ebb and flow quite like the Slam Dunk Contest. A decade ago, it was rising star Dwight Howard who helped give the event one of its periodic peaks, while now, his game and popularity have simply ebbed, with no renewing flow of affection from fans in sight. His 2008 performance, though, remains iconic and offers a prism through which to look at why he was once so beloved.
In 2008, the contest was going through one of its familiar slumps. Two of the previous three contests had been won by someone wearing a jersey honoring a previous contest winner, unintentionally symbolizing the belief held by many that all the contest could do at this point was recreate the past, saying little about the present or future of the league.
The defending champion, Gerald Green, gave a good enough winning performance in 2007, the event’s highlight being his homage to Dee Brown when he dunked over 2006 champion Nate Robinson. Along with Green’s tribute to Brown, the most impressive dunk of the evening was Dwight Howard’s “sticker dunk,” where he placed a sticker featuring his own smiling face twelve and a half feet up — on the upper left corner of the backboard — while throwing it down with his right hand. Likely because the judges weren’t immediately aware of just that they had witnessed, the dunk was given a 42, and Howard was robbed of an appearance in the Finals.
If 2007 was Howard’s coming out party, 2008 would be his coronation. The previous year had been Howard’s first appearance as an All-Star, and included his first viral moment as well (which was more of a rarity back then) when he was filmed in a dance-off with LeBron and Shaq. While Howard’s performance was far more tentative and less fluid than his All-Star teammates, it furthered the idea that he was more than just a promising young star — he was also a fun and likable guy, and the one to eventually take Shaq’s torch. O’Neal was nearing the end of his storied career, and while the NBA was far less desperate to find the next Shaq as they were to find the New Jordan, fans weren’t going to pass up on a star when they were granted one.
In the opening round, Howard scored a perfect 100 on his two dunks. His first was marvelous for anyone, let alone someone of his size. He threw himself an alley-oop off the back of the backboard before finishing with a left-handed windmill. Howard was not only the rare big man who could pull off feats such as this, but he performed it all so smoothly and effortlessly that they were aesthetically pleasing as well. His second dunk featured him playing up his self-styled Superman persona as he wore a red cape and jumped from the free throw line as he threw the basketball in the hoop from a few feet out, creating, or at least popularizing, the “thrunk.” His opening round was so dominant, the final round was a mere formality. Nevertheless, his next two dunks matched the skill and virtuosity of his first two. Kenny Smith was so impressed that he called Howard “a video game, not a real person” before claiming (albeit incorrectly) that Howard was now responsible for two of the top five dunks in Dunk Contest history. Needless to say, Howard won easily, with seventy-eight percent of the fan vote.
A decade later, Howard is playing out the final days of his career in virtual anonymity. He no longer makes an otherwise meandering team a good one, even with an All-Star point guard by his side. He is now a man no one really wants — the Hawks traded him to the Hornets for a relative pittance just to avoid having to pay out the final two years on his 70 million dollar contract. It’s more than a falling off athletically, though, that has led to the change in reputation. He left three consecutive teams in disarray, all of whom ranged from mildly relieved to overjoyed to see him go.
What was once so endearing about him became tiresome. His childlike joy and glee seemed more like immaturity as he aged. Dwight never really changed, but the NBA landscape did, passing him by as his style of play quickly became antiquated and as new, younger, more exciting stars came along — stars without the baggage that Howard had accumulated. Beneath his easy-going demeanor was an ego that was easily wounded. Howard constantly cast himself as the victim, regardless of his own complicity in the fraught situations he often found himself in.
His fragility is not what we expect or hope for from our professional athletes. Though the quite harmful masculine stereotypes that flood our culture in general, and the world of sports more particularly, certainly contribute to these expectations, Dwight’s perpetual sense of woundedness proved to be problematic on its own. His vocal dissatisfaction with various aspects of his career were not cries for justice, but petty complaints that were, quite often, his own fault. There was often a sense that we were being lied to, and much of the time, we were. Most infamously, there was the moment right after Stan Van Gundy addressed reporters, while solemnly drinking a can of Diet Pepsi, stating that management told him that Howard had asked for Van Gundy to be fired. In the middle of the media scrum, Howard very awkwardly burst in and put his arm around Van Gundy, vehemently denying the rumors Van Gundy had just confirmed. Six years later, that disingenuous event seems as emblematic of his career as any single moment he spent on the court.
There was also the matter of his faith. It is not uncommon for professional athletes to give credit to the divine for their achievements, but Howard went a bit further. A pre-draft profile in Sports Illustrated mentioned his desire for a cross to be superimposed over the NBA logo, and quoted him as saying that his main purpose is “to preach the word of God in the NBA.” Even the sticker from the famous sticker dunk featured an abridged version of Philippians 4:13 on it. It was less the proclamations of faith on their own that became exhausting, but the hypocrisy that seemed to go along with it. It was later revealed that Howard had fathered five children with five different women. More strangely and disturbingly, he once went over to the house of Chris Kirkpatrick from N*SYNC at three in the morning, to confront a woman he had recently been talking to. After he arrived, the woman pulled him into the bathroom to tell him to go home where he allegedly pulled his pants down before she ran out screaming. Sports fans can tolerate piety, and they can also tolerate serial womanizing, but the combination of the two is a much harder sell.
Dwight Howard remained a man caught between his best and worst impulses, unable to reconcile them. For many, this inability to be reduced to a single attribute makes them seem enigmatic, whereas Dwight seemed confused, immature, unable to just grow up. He would say the right things for a basketball star to say, like how he prized winning above all else, but would then burn bridges thereby preventing him from playing in a stable environment, let alone a winning one. Despite all the work he purportedly put in on his offensive game, and his desperate desire for post-up touches, he never developed an arsenal of skillful post moves. He was effective, sure, but his work down low had all the artistry of a child knocking a glass of milk off a table. It’s impossible to call Howard’s career a disappointment, but somewhere along the way, his potential turned into false promises.
Stardom is a fickle thing. It depends not only on the quality of one’s play, but the player’s ability to resonate with and capture the devotion of casual fans as well. Howard was once able to do that, but as the game changed and he became more known for his off-court drama than his ability, fans and general managers alike grew wary to pledge their allegiance to him. Just as a sticker leaves a bit of residue after being torn off, so too do the memories of the smiling, goofy teenager who entered the league over a decade ago stay in our minds when we think of Howard today. We see the face that smiled back at us from the sticker he placed on the backboard in 2007 and wonder what happened to it, why Dwight continues singing the same song that has grown old. Despite everything, Howard is still an undoubted Hall of Famer, and while it’s now hard to recall what made him so special, not just as a player, but as a personality, revisiting his performance in the 2008 Dunk Contest makes remembering why at least a bit easier.
