Dwight Howard is Six Years Old

The most expensive man at the least necessary position in the game has struck again. Dwight Howard, your friend who always tells you that his parents let him curse in his house, got a tech last night for tossing ball at a fan who was heckling him, and somehow managed to get shown up in the process. 

The real fault for Dwight's constant "antics" (for lack of a better word) lies with the NBA GMs who continue to see him as a legitimate star in the Association. Both of the last two summers have been Dwightstavaganza's; 24/7 Sportcenter coverage, non-stop rumor-mongering, just a constant stream of mediocre dunks from the restricted zone with some no-name center watching in the background. Dwight just ate it up, he felt loved again. "People want to see me play" he said, "They probably actually like me" he would tell himself. And so he rode that horse of rampant self-appreciation to the only city in the world where he'd be only the second most egotistical player on the team, LA. Kobe was the man in LA, and he ran Shaq out of town. The only person on that Lakers team who thought adding Dwight would help was the man himself. We know how that story ended, so we can fast forward to today.

Dwight on the Rockets is still the same Dwight Howard, he wants to spike every shot into the third row, cannot move without looking like a rusty old robot, and desperately wants everyone to like him. He's not the worst player on an NBA roster, but he's certainly the most overvalued. Yes he can block shots, yes he can rebound, but he's seven feet tall, so if he can't do either of those things his vocation would probably be helping me change the batteries in my smoke alarms. So he posses at least a modicum of talent (read: height) but what does he do to set himself apart from every other seven footer on a roster? He's not an exceptional passer (both Gasols, Kevin Love (basically a seven footer)). He can't shoot (Spencer Hawes, Kevin Love). He's not an enforcer (Kendrick Perkins). He's not quite a walking arthroscopic punch-line (Bynum, Oden) He's not young enough for his actions to be remotely excusable (Boogie Cousins). He's not explicitly labeled as a role player (Tyson Chandler) And he's not cheap (Asik, Greg Monroe, Vucevic, Hibbert, Lopez, every other center I haven't mentioned). He's Dwight. He steals Defensive POY's from LeBron, nicknames from Shaq, and probably extra Creatine supplements from the athletic trainer. But teams still think signing him is going to lead them to the promised land, and as long as they keep doing that, Dwight's gonna keep on being Dwight. Doing hints like making funny faces at the ref after he traveled, carefully grooming his The Temptations era mustache, being loved by eight-year-old boys and liteally no one else, and ruining your team.

At least he won that dunk contest, that was really cool too.