NBA: Dwight Howard Talks Return To Staples Center Tonight

Yep, this should be interesting.  Dwight Howard will face his former team at the Staples Center tonight (10:30p on ESPN) for the first time since making the decision to leave the Lakers for the Rockets.  So how is he feeling about it?!  Will he get booed?!  Check out what he had to say…

GameTimeGirl

Via ESPN:

Dwight Howard isn’t regretting leaving the Los Angeles Lakers. He’s happy in Houston and confident he made the right decision last July to spurn the Lakers’ five-year, $118 million offer for the Rockets’ four-year, $87.6 million deal.

“There’s a couple things that could’ve been done, but that’s over with now,” Howard said with a coy smile Tuesday afternoon. “I’m in a better place, our team is doing great and the Lakers, they’ll come back. But hopefully this is the Rockets’ time.”

…

The environment he walks into for Wednesday night’s game will likely be pretty funky, too. Howard said he was expecting to hear a lot of boos from Lakers fans.

“I think there will be a lot of boos,” Howard said. “I can’t really focus too much on that. I know I’m going to hear it the whole game. All the noises, whatever you want to call it, ‘Coward.’ There’s not anything I can do about it except to go out and play.

“This year I’ve been through it a lot in every city because there are Laker fans everywhere. Every city I get booed in. I think I’m a little bit prepared for it.”

Still, there is a part of him that feels badly things didn’t work out in Los Angeles.

“When you’re not healthy and you’re trying to play through injuries and stuff like that, it’s not fun,” Howard said. “You’re hurt and there’s things you want to do but you can’t. I know last year, I can recall a lot of times I’d go up for dunks and I didn’t have it. And I’m like man, this isn’t fun.

“I tried to do whatever I could to help the team win, but I was really hurting myself as far as my back and stuff like that.”

(Story Continues…)