From celebrating his first championship as an owner in Taiwan to shaking a leg on Dancing with the Stars, Dwight Howard seems to be living his best life. But beneath the smiles and flashy moves, there’s a hint of bitterness about how things ended with the NBA. Earlier this year, Howard took some bold shots at the league, and now he’s pulling back the curtain on how NBA teams operate, revealing a stark reality about his NBA exit.

In a recent episode of his podcast Above the Rim with Nick Young, Howard shared some eye-opening insights into the business side of the NBA, which he believes was the real reason for his exit. “When you got these owners and these teams, they looking at this bottom line. How can they reach this? How can they get this?” Howard explained. For players, the game is personal—they pour their heart and soul into it. But for the owners, it’s just business, a matter of profit and loss. “It’s not personal to them,” he added.

Continuing the conversation, Howard pointed out that even if a player is beloved by fans or has a deep connection with a team, it hardly matters to the owners. “It’s their company. They can do whatever the hell they want to do,” he stated bluntly on the podcast.

Howard further went on to shed light on how these owners view their investments. “It’s bigger than basketball,” he said, describing how they pitch players and teams to global companies, securing billions in investments. For them, it’s about showing potential sponsors that the team can deliver a solid return on investment.

In August, Howard took a moment to celebrate his victory in Taiwan with the Taoyuan Leopards, while also taking a subtle dig at the NBA. “Life is a crazy thing, look how I got cut from the league now I own a league,” he wrote on social media, signaling his continued frustration with how his NBA career ended. But what exactly led to his unceremonious departure?

Dwight Howard’s NBA exit

Just two days after his post, Dwight Howard took to his podcast to air out his frustrations about his rough 2022 free agency experience. When asked how he felt at the time, Howard didn’t sugarcoat it. “At that time, I was fed up with all the cr*p and the lies,” he admitted. “So I was like, man, I’d rather just go somewhere and hoop ’cause it’s just too many lies.”

Back in 2022, Howard also expressed his disappointment on the All The Smoke podcast. Despite being a 3x Defensive Player of the Year, he felt like no team was giving him a fair shot. “I wanna play, but at the same time, there’s like no teams that really wanna allow me to play,” Howard shared.

According to Forbes, it wasn’t Howard’s performance that kept him out of the NBA—it was his reputation. An Eastern Conference executive revealed that Howard’s behavior in Orlando still lingered in the minds of many. “There are a lot of guys who are friends with Stan who never forgave Dwight Howard, even if Stan did,” the executive noted.

Moreover, Howard himself believes this grudge played a significant role in his departure. On The OGs podcast, he shared his wish to retire with the Orlando Magic, saying, “If I could go back with a team, I gotta go back with the Magic.” Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.