The highlight of the ad came smack in the middle: "With your support we have done great things in this city from hanging banners to impacting our youth." Hanging banners? You won ONE East championship, and you beat the Cleveland LeBron James' too. You also won the division three times, but those don't get put up in the rafters, Dwight. And all the impacting you had on the youth of Orlando was undone over the last year. You taught kids what they already know--if you kick and scream long enough, you'll get your own way eventually. An apology for his actions over the last year was not among the lauding of the fans and the city of Orlando. You'd think an apology for the distraction and overall childish behavior would be in order, but I guess not. Instead, he'd rather preach his non-existent love for the city he used to play basketball for.
Howard says that 'words cannot express the love that I have for Orlando' and that 'my love for the city...will never end.' That's the biggest crock of bull I've heard in a long time. I can understand wanting to leave a team that has no interest in its star's opinion. For instance, if Otis Smith and Stan Van Gundy weren't fired at the end of the season, then I can understand why Howard would want to leave. But they were fired at the end of the season, and then Howard met with the new GM of the Magic and still demanded to be traded to Brooklyn. Now call me crazy, but if Dwight Howard loved the city of Orlando as much as he says he does, then why not give the new GM (Rob Hennigan) and head coach (Jacque Vaughn) a chance? It's only for one year, nothing bad could come of it. He apparently adores the city of Orlando, so that part of staying shouldn't have been a problem at all.
All the Magic wanted was one more year under a new GM and coach to try and sway him to stay in Orlando. That's it, but he wanted no part of it. So let's see, he couldn't have disliked the coach because he didn't know the coach, he couldn't have disliked the new direction of the team because they would have bent over backwards for him, he didn't hate his teammates, the only reason left was that Dwight Howard had had enough of Orlando. He doesn't love Orlando; he probably never did. If he truly loved Orlando, he'd still be there right now.
Dwight Howard should have never bought an ad in the Orlando Sentinel. After what he put the sports world through over the last year, all he had to do was go away and disappear from the spotlight. Nobody cares that he put an ad in the newspaper thanking his former fans three weeks after he left the team, and nobody believes it to be sincere either. I think a week after would have been the sincerity deadline. Three weeks later is basically a slap in the face. It's as if he was celebrating his departure, his publicist calls in a panic saying he forgot to thank the fans, and then he assures him it'll get done tomorrow only tomorrow turns into weeks. The ad is fitting in one way though. This whole situation has been a PR disaster, so now that it's over, why not conclude with one final PR disaster. Yep, Dwight Howard can't even get a thank you right.
References
No comments:
Post a Comment