BY TIM LOVE

Prior to the Houston Rockets game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night November 7, 2013, most of the media has been focusing on Dwight Howard’s return instead of the game at hand.

Dwight left the Lakers over the summer of 2013 when he became a free agent. He is now with the Houston Rockets. This game against the Lakers will be his first meeting since leaving for the Rockets.

This week the media has been directing questions to Dwight like how will it feel to play against his former teammates on Thursday. Dwight has dodged questions about his one year stint in Los Angeles last season. Other questions answered by analysts were about how Howard will respond playing against his former team.

In a video on ESPN called “Dwight downplays facing Lakers”, Bruce Bowen said Dwight should want to play like “it’s all there fault”. I think the meaning of this is when most players have disappointing seasons with a former team and leave to go to another team they have something to prove.

In regards to Dwight playing against the Lakers, Bowen said he should approach the game by playing as “I was able to do some things, and you all wouldn’t allow me to do it”. Basically this says the Lakers didn’t really implement him into the offense with Kobe Bryant and I think Bowen feels Dwight should show that his game fits better with the Houston Rockets. I believe the reason why the media pays a lot of attention to athletes playing against their former teams is because it’s an interesting topic and sometimes the media wants to know how that particular athlete feels about the situation.

It will be interesting to see if this happens every time Dwight plays his former team. Will this also happen when he plays the Magic or has that relationship association dissolved because of his time with the Lakers? Whether Dwight does have strong feelings about playing his former teams or not, the media will always gravitate towards the most dramatic theoretical situation.