Dwight Howard has his head in the game — in both dance and basketball, that is.
After an emotional conversation with Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss about his three non-consecutive stints with the team, the 38-year-old revealed if he would ever play for the iconic West Coach franchise again.
“I would definitely go back to the Lakers,” Howard exclusively told the Post on Tuesday before his “Dancing With the Stars” partner Daniella Karagach quipped, “I’m getting him in shape.”
“Right now, it’s all about me and Danny,” the 6-foot-10 athlete said about his partnership with the professional dancer. “No teams, just me and Danny.”
Earlier this month, Howard and Buss, 63, sat down for a talk on his “Above the Rim with DH12” podcast.
“I was so sad. I wanted to come back,” the eight-time NBA All-Star explained. “And I don’t know what had happened.”
“You took an offer from the Philadelphia 76ers,” Buss told him.
During the conversation, the pair cleared the air about the end of his second and most successful stint with the Lakers in 2019–2020.
The former first-round pick insinuated that his former agent had led him to believe that Buss and the team were not interested in re-signing him as a free agent.
Howard’s former agent, Charles Briscoe, pleaded guilty last year for his role in defrauding Howard of $7 million in a scheme to buy the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.
Briscoe, who worked with Calvin Darden Jr. to defraud Howard, was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan earlier this month.
“I think that we were just told so many different things,” Howard told Buss on the episode. “And I think now looking back on it with the situation that I had with my agent … So, like, I don’t even know what the truth was because what I was told was that you guys didn’t have an offer for me.”
But Buss made it clear that there was no tomfoolery on her end.
“Oh, no, that’s not true,” she stated. “We made an offer. We did.”
Howard responded: “I never even knew that. He told me — well, actually, he said that you guys had an offer, and then he said you guys took the offer back and said, ‘No.’”
Later in their conversation, the Season 33 “DWTS” contestant double-checked he had heard Buss right. “So y’all did have an offer for me?” Howard asked.
“Yes!” answered Buss.
She revealed that with the NBA’s salary cap, the timing to make contract offers to build a roster is tricky.
“I think for a player, if a team is saying, like, we have a contract, but you have to wait to sign it, or we gotta sign other players first, it’d just seem like you’re not a priority,” Howard continued.
Buss responded: “I can see why you would feel that way, and [that’s] probably what another team trying to sign you would say to you to put us down. But that’s not who we are. And you know that.”
Howard also wondered if an assist from him and the other players on the Laker’s 2020 team would have changed their winning streak.
“Do you feel like if we would’ve kept the team together we would’ve won a couple of championships?” Howard asked the president.
“I think so. I feel like when you win a championship, that’s when you give the guys a chance to defend their title,” Buss confessed. “But once there was, like, three or four guys not coming back, then it wasn’t the same anyway.”
The 2020 team saw several players, including Rajon Rondo, leave as free agents, while the team traded away players like Danny Green and JaVale McGee.
Howard ended up signing a one-year deal with the 76ersbut returned to Los Angeles to play with the Lakers for 2021-22, which was the last of his 18 seasons in the NBA — as of now. He previously also played for the Washington Wizards (2018-2019), Charlotte Hornets (2017-2018), Atlanta Hawks (2016-2017), Houston Rockets (2013-2016) and Orlando Magic (2004-2012).
“It’s so good to have the conversation because now it doesn’t leave room for miscommunication. We have an understanding,” Howard reflected. “Because for years I was so hurt by that. … It just seemed like we had something, but it’s just like we didn’t pursue it like we should have on both ends.”
Buss added, “We would have been better off staying together. But it was, like, a misdirection or a misunderstanding.”
Dwight and Buss’s episode comes amid LeBron James and Bronny James making history as the first father-son duo to play a regular season NBA game together. The pair played in the Lakers’ 110-103 season-opening win over the Timberwolves on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
“That moment, us being at the scorer’s table together and checking in together, it’s a moment I’m never going to forget,” LeBron, 39, said after the win. “No matter how old I get, no matter how my memory may fade as I get older or whatever, I will never forget that moment.”
“(I) tried not to focus on everything that’s going on around me, and tried to focus on going in as a rookie and not trying to mess up,” Bronny shared after the victory. “But yeah, I totally did feel the energy, and I appreciate Laker Nation for showing the support for me and my dad.”