In an appearance on “The Stephen A. Smith Show”, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne revealed one of the reasons why the Los Angeles Lakers signed big man Dwight Howard this offseason:
“The reason that Dwight is a Laker is because Anthony Davis doesn’t want to play the five. He doesn’t want to play against the big centers in the Western Conference. He needs a big dude next to him that can eat up some of those minutes and take some of that physical pounding from Nikola Jokic or (Jusuf) Nurkic or any of the centers you want to name out West … Anthony Davis doesn’t want to be that guy, and so he had a big say in whether or not Dwight was going to be cast in this role for them,” Shelburne said.
This past season, Howard missed most part of the 2018-19 season owing to injuries, averaging 12.8 points along with 9.2 rebounds per game.
