Try as he might to comprehend it all, Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni readily admits he’s still perplexed by Dwight Howard’s decision to bolt L.A. for the Houston Rockets.
Since Howard rendered his decision a little more than a month ago, D’Antoni has kept a relatively low profile as he and team management have gone about the business of trying to devise a roster more cut in his up-tempo styled image.
But over the last few days, the coach apparently has felt more of a need to make his voice heard on such matters.
"It's hard for me to sit here and criticize or even to understand why he left a place like L.A.," D'Antoni told ESPN. "That's kind of mind-boggling a little bit, but that's in his DNA and what he wants to do."
In choosing to exit, Howard bypassed an L.A. offer more than $30 million more than the maximum of $88 million he could get in Houston as well as an offer to have his own Time Warner cable based reality TV show.
"Everybody has got to make that decision," D'Antoni added. "You can debate it all you want. Only Dwight knows. Obviously he didn't think he would be as happy here as he will be in Houston. That might be the case and he had to make that decision. There will be a lot of speculation, we tried it, it didn't work out and we go forward. So be it. You hate it. Dwight's one of the better centers in the league and it would have been a long-term thing, but I looked at it like, 'OK, you don't have Dwight but you got Pau Gasol.”
Not to mention Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash, provided both of them can come back much healthier than how they ended the 2012-13 season.
"I wouldn't put anything past him but nobody knows,” D’Antoni said of the prospect of Nash being recovered enough from his torn Achilles to return to action by opening night. “We'll just have to wait and see in a month or two. He’s very determined in what he does and we’ll work together to do what’s best for him.”
As for Nash, D’Antoni added "just knowing and watching him, he's going to have as good of a year as he's had in a while because he's hell bent on coming back and giving Los Angeles their money's worth because that's the type of person he is."
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