CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER EIGHT Dwight Howard was once asked what the best thing about being a young NBA star was. Was it fame? Fortune? All the perks that come with being a celebrity athlete?
None of the above entered into his answer. For Dwight, the best thing was “being able to touch the lives of kids and teenagers across the nation. Some are about the same age as me, so we can relate to each other. I can have a positive effect on them.”
Dwight wasn’t just handing out some line. He believed in leading by example—an example that stemmed from his strong religious convictions. He had once set down a goal to bring the word of God as he understood it to the NBA. He knew that he would encounter some resistance to his beliefs. In fact, he had already faced one such challenge.
When he was younger, Dwight had drawn a crude picture of a Christian cross adorning the silhouetted player on the NBA logo. The press made a big deal out of that image when they learned of it. They claimed Dwight planned to push his religion on the league.
Dwight quickly made it clear that while he hoped to spread the word of God in the NBA, “that doesn’t mean standing on a podium before a game and trying to tell everybody to follow Christ.”
How did the Orlando Magic feel about Dwight’s religious convictions? No one openly expressed any concern—and why would they? Dwight was one of the most mature, grounded teenagers ever to come out of the draft. If his beliefs played a part in that—and there could be no doubt that they did—then dissuading him from living by those beliefs would be foolhardy.
Two weeks after becoming a Magic player, Dwight reported to Orlando’s summer league, where, he stated later, his “main goal… was to get accustomed to playing against bigger bodies.”
Dwight had been weight training for a while, but now he stepped up his program so he could meet those bigger bodies with confidence. “I expect to take hits,” he said. “But when I get back up, I just may hit them back. Harder.”
He did well in the first five-game series of the summer league, earning the highest averages in rebounding (10.4) and blocks (3.0). He soared during the Magic’s next summer stop, Las Vegas, where he scored 25 points and pulled in 9 rebounds in the final match.
Two months after the summer league ended, Orlando’s training camp began. The practices were much longer and much more rigorous than any Dwight had ever experienced—and he reveled in every minute of them. In fact, he often put in extra practice time after the regular sessions were through.
“It was fun because I was doing something I loved,” he said.
The NBA preseason began immediately after training camp ended. The Magic had made significant changes to its roster in the off-season. That the new crop of players was still trying to mesh was apparent during their first preseason games. They lost three in a row before finally pulling out a decisive 114–93 win in their fourth match. That victory was followed by three more to give the Magic a record of 4 wins, 3 losses.
In three of the seven games, Dwight had posted double-double figures in points and rebounds. He also added some crowd-pleasing dunks, including six in his first appearance. But his shooting from the free-throw line was inconsistent, and he got into foul trouble during one game.
Still, it was a respectable start for the rookie out of high school. But Dwight knew that he had to bring the good stuff to the court when the regular season began if he was to prove himself a true asset to the team.