Dwight Howard says he regrets leaving Lakers in 2013

A turning point in Lakers history came when Dwight Howard left the franchise after one season in 2013, a decision the big man recently admitted he regretted.

While sliding door moments are aplenty in the history of the Lakers franchise, one of the more notable instances came in 2013. After a disastrous season 2012-13 campaign for the team as a whole, Dwight Howard made matters worse by leaving the franchise a year after they traded for him.

That move, paired with Kobe Bryant’s Achilles injury and Steve Nash’s general inability to ever get healthy, sent the Lakers down the tanking path it took them a half-dozen years to get out of.

Would things have been different if Howard stayed? It certainly would have given the Lakers the star of the next generation they lacked, at least on the court.

Interestingly, in a recent appearance on Gilbert Arenas’ podcast, Howard admitted that he regretted leaving, referring to it as an “emotional” decision.

“One, I was already pissed because I had to go to LA. Nobody every knew I didn’t want to go LA. I didn’t want to go to the Lakers because I wanted to beat the Lakers. They just beat us in the Finals. In my mind, I was like, ‘Why would I go to the team that just beat us?’ I wanted to go to Brooklyn and just start my whole career over but I got sent to LA and I was like ‘I’m going to come back and we’re going to try to win in LA.’ and it didn’t work out. And I made an emotional decision to leave. I do regret that, making a decision just based off my emotions and how I was feeling about how the fans were, how I felt the organization was at the time with me and Kobe. I didn’t really make a smart, logical decision. I just made an emotional decision at that time.”

There were certainly plenty of sour grapes when the Lakers and Howard parted ways in the summer of 2013. Rumors were aplenty about the relationship between Kobe and Dwight and how they viewed their potential partnership for years to come.

Howard admitting he made an emotional decision is a surprising amount of maturity for someone who had an off-court reputation for the opposite throughout most of his career. Perhaps it’s something that was easier to admit after coming back and winning a title with the team in 2020 as well.

There’s an argument to be made about how much him staying would have changed anything. While he was an All-Star in 2013-14 in Houston, there was a noticeable drop-off in the years that followed. There were also a host of injury issues that plagued him for a stretch late in his career, too.

It’s a bunch of what-ifs that you could bandy around. But those what-ifs feel a little more fresh to discuss after Dwight’s newest comments.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.