{"id":125590,"date":"2025-02-25T10:22:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=125590"},"modified":"2025-02-25T10:22:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:22:51","slug":"orlando-magic-legend-dwight-howard-actively-pursuing-nba-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/25\/orlando-magic-legend-dwight-howard-actively-pursuing-nba-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Magic Legend Is Actively Pursuing NBA Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite not appearing in an NBA game in nearly three years, this future Hall of Famer is not ready to call it quits yet. In a recent interview on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/georgpa01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul George<\/a>&#8216;s podcast (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YaWhug5mRNo\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube link<\/a>), big man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/howardw01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dwight Howard<\/a> revealed that he is still interested in an NBA return. Additionally, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/08\/magic-add-ethan-thompson-on-two-way-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Orlando Magic<\/a> great made it clear that he is actively pursuing a comeback and has &#8220;not officially retired.&#8221; Howard also revealed that he reached out to George and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/25\/lakers-unpredictable-force-title-race\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-25_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> about a potential comeback.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I have not officially retired yet, but I don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m going to do yet,\u201d Howard said on Podcast P with Paul George. \u201cI thought I was going to get back in the league, but Paul said he didn&#8217;t want nobody over 35 playing center\u2026 I asked LeBron. He said he wanted Bronny and he said he&#8217;s trying to get Bryce. The last time I told LeBron he said, listen I&#8217;m trying to get Bronny and Bryce to be on the Lakers and I&#8217;m trying to get Savannah to be\u2013 he&#8217;s going to be the owner of the team so it&#8217;s a family affair, the whole James family. But no man, I really enjoyed my time with the Lakers. Obviously playing with LeBron, it&#8217;s a great memory playing with the Lakers. As far as retirement, man, I just wanted to play as long as I could play, and retire when I feel like retiring, not when somebody else tells me I should or stuff like that.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Howard last appeared in the NBA for the Lakers during the 2021-22 season.<\/p>\n<h2>Orlando Magic Legend Dwight Howard Is Actively Pursuing NBA Return<\/h2>\n<h3>Dwight Howard Has Attempted an NBA Return Before<\/h3>\n<p>This is far from the only time the former MVP candidate pursued an NBA comeback. In October, Howard revealed he &#8220;would definitely go back to the Lakers&#8221; if <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/10\/23\/2020-los-angeles-lakers-champion-dwight-howard-would-definitely-re-sign-with-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">he had the chance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would definitely go back to the Lakers,\u201d Howard exclusively told the Post on Tuesday before his \u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d partner Daniella Karagach quipped, \u201cI\u2019m getting him in shape.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, in January, Howard took to social media to make another plea.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">It ain\u2019t that hard to find a center \ud83d\ude34<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DwightHoward\/status\/1882763385156313144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 24, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p>Howard is 39 years old and well past his prime. Additionally, he has been out of the game for a while. Even if a team opted to sign him, it is unlikely he would play a big role, especially in the playoffs. As it stands, it seems improbable he will complete his NBA comeback. However, a lot of crazy things have happened in the league.<\/p>\n<p>Even if he does not return to the NBA, Howard remains one of the best big men of the modern era. He was one of the best players in the NBA in his prime and is a future Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Kim Klement-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite not appearing in an NBA game in nearly three years, this future Hall of Famer is not ready to call it quits yet. In a recent interview on Paul George&#8216;s podcast (YouTube link), big man Dwight Howard revealed that he is still interested in an NBA return. Additionally, the Orlando Magic great made it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":125591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,62,3,17],"tags":[205],"class_list":["post-125590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","category-magic","tag-dwight-howard"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125594,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125590\/revisions\/125594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}