Why didn't Dwight Howard return to the Lakers after the 2020 title? He and Jeanie Buss clear the air

Dwight Howard was confused.

On a team led by LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Howard was considered a key player during the Lakers' 2020 NBA championship season. But he was not brought back the following season.

“I was so sad. I wanted to come back,” Howard said on this week’s episode of his podcast “Above the Rim with DH12.” “And I don’t know what happened.”

His guest, Lakers control owner Jeanie Buss, was also confused – by Howard's comment.

“You accepted an offer from the Philadelphia 76ers,” Buss told him.

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During a conversation that seemed genuinely warm and caring, Howard and Buss clarified the end of the second – and most successful – of Howard's three stints with the Lakers. The eight-time All-Star stated that his agent at the time led him to believe that the team was not interested in re-signing him as a free agent.

Howard's former agent was Charles Briscoe, who pleaded guilty last year to charges that he defrauded Howard of $7 million in a fraudulent scheme to purchase the WNBA's Atlanta Dream. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Briscoe worked with Calvin Darden Jr. to commit the fraud and was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan earlier this month.

In another case, Darden was found guilty of defrauding former NBA forward Chandler Parsons out of $1 million.

“I think we were just told so many different things,” Howard told Buss, “and I think now looking back at the situation I had with my agent…So I don't even know.” Truth was, because I was told that you had no offer for me.”

Buss replied, “Oh no, that’s not true. We made an offer. That’s what we did.”

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Howard replied, “I didn’t even know that. He told me – well, actually he said you had an offer, and then he said you took the offer back and said, 'No'.”

Later in the conversation, Howard checked again.

“So do you all have an offer for me?” he asked.

“Yes!” Buss replied.

She explained that given the NBA's salary cap, it can sometimes be difficult to find the right time to make contract offers to build a roster.

“I think when a team tells a player we have a contract but you have to wait to sign it or we have to sign other players first, then it seems like you're just not a priority,” Howard said.

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Buss responded, “I can understand why you feel that way and (that's) probably what another team that wants to sign you would tell you to put us down. “But that's not us. And you know that.”

Both Howard and Buss agreed that the Lakers could have won more championships if the team had stayed together in 2020. Instead, several players, including Rajon Rondo, left the team as free agents, while the team traded players such as Danny Green and JaVale McGee.

“Do you feel like if we had kept the team together we would have won a few championships?” Howard asked Buss.

Buss replied: “I think so. I feel like when you win a championship you give the guys a chance to defend their title. … But when three or four people didn’t come back, it wasn’t the same anyway.”

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Howard ultimately signed a one-year deal with the 76ers but returned to the Lakers for 2021-22, the last of his 18 seasons in the NBA.

“It's so good to have the conversation because now it leaves no room for misunderstandings. “We agree,” Howard said. “Because it hurt me so much for years.” … It just seemed like we had something, but it’s just like we didn’t pursue it the way we should have.”

Buss later added: “It would have been better if we had stayed together. But it was something like a misdirection or a misunderstanding.”

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.