The Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets will face off Thursday in the first matchup since Dwight Howard left for free agency. At one point, Howard's face was plastered on the Staples Center, but now it is hanging in the Toyota Center in Houston, bringing up a swirl of memories for the Lakers. Paul Gasol is not interested in thinking about what went wrong in the Howard experiment, instead respecting the player's decision to move.
"He made his decision and felt like that was the best choice for him and so you respect him for it and that's it," Gasol said, via ESPNLosAngeles.com. "A lot of things went wrong last year for sure. There was a lot of adversity. Nothing really clicked. So it was a tough year for everyone. Not for one individual. Pretty much for the entire team it was a tough year to go through."
Howard failed to build successful relationships with Lakers teammates and chemistry on the court was clearly not present during his one season in Los Angeles. Star Kobe Bryant notes that the two players had very different personalities that were hard to blend both on the court and off. He claimed the two never saw eye to eye on a lot of decisions. Gasol agreed that the dynamic between the two players was off.
"There was definitely a lack of understanding and connection," Gasol said. "I don't know how much tension there was. There was days when it was fine and everybody was on the same page and when things get a little rough, usually that's when the tensions occur and come up. It was a rough year, a lot of things didn't go our way and that made it that much more difficult."
The Lakers are not concerned about the Thursday night game and facing Howard for the first time in a different uniform. Head coach Mike D'Antoni simply said he enjoyed coaching Howard for the year and hoped he was happy with a new team.
"It's too bad," D'Antoni said. "We would have loved for him to be here in L.A. It didn't work out. We turned the page and go on. That's about it. We knew there were some problems. We didn't know which way it would go and he just picked Houston. I'm sure he'll make the best of it, and we'll try to make the best of it. It's strange, they do exactly the same thing here [in Houston] that we tried to do. So, that's fine. We're cool."
Howard appears to be happy considering he is averaging 17.4 points and 14.6 rebounds per game with the Rockets. Houston is currently sitting at 4-1 while the Lakers are 2-3 with an 0-2 road record so far this year.
