Magic Center Dwight Howard Knows Why His Team is in the NBA Finals June 2, 2009

Magic Center Dwight Howard Knows Why His Team is in the NBA Finals

By Guest Contributor
June 2, 2009

God loves the Orlando Magic, says center Dwight Howard. Again.

Or to put it another way, God hates the LA Lakers. And LeBron James.

Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com is tired of Howard’s Godtalk:

Why, Howard was asked, should the Orlando Magic be picked by the media or others to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers?

“God,” was Howard’s response.

He apparently wasn’t joking…

…

And here we are again. Another athlete unwisely sticks God into a place where She doesn’t belong.

God? God is the reason the Magic are going to win? God cares about who wins a basketball game? Really? Really?

Really.

Freeman gets a nice zinger in there, too:

If God really favored Howard and the Magic, God would make it so Howard connected on more free throws.

Once again, I find myself rooting against Orlando. And after they lose, a persistent reporter will ask Howard why God wanted his team to lose… it’ll be excellent television.

(Thanks to Larry for the link!)

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  • Kate

    Another athlete unwisely sticks God into a place where She doesn’t belong.

    Hahahahah, I think the She was a lovely zinger, too. 😉

  • bill

    Damn I would love to be a journalist at the news conference when they lose…

  • Actually god could care less about Howard and the Magic. He just wanted to ensure the city of Cleveland went another year without winning a championship and the Magic just happened to be there when he decided to act…you know the old testament god not the new testament one.

  • Sorry, but this just doesn’t excite me. I watch the NBA because these guys can play ball and not because they are intellectual giants.

    It is much, much, much more damaging to have, say, Presidential candidates, Governors and United States Senators who think this way.

    Howard? He is one heck of a good center and has a body that I envy (yeah, I am a hetero male).

    (note: if Howard started to shoot free throws at 90 percent, I might start to think about divine intervention. 🙂 )

  • I want to see this at an after game press conference:

    I was doing great until Jesus made me fumble!

  • Miko

    Well, the question he was asked wasn’t much better than the answer. I mean, what’s a good answer to that question? “Well, they’ve got a lot of smog in LA, so I’m thinking that their players will be out of breath around the second [basketball term for section of game], which will give us a competitive advantage.” And then you’ve got some reporter complaining about yet-another player hyping up the “smog” angle.

  • duhsciple

    As a Christian, I do not believe that God is involved in which team wins or loses, the weather forecast, or helping me get an “A” in algebra when I didn’t study. I do believe that God cares how we embody love towards one another, rejecting violence, hatred, demonization, arrogance, stupidity, and the trashing of our planet

  • Back when Rick Reilly was still writing for Sports Illustrated, he had an excellent column about NFL players doing the whole religious circle-jerk at midfield after the game (for the express purpose of shoving Jeebus down people’s throats). He also called the Giants to task during their Super Bowl win over the Bills because they were praying on the sideline for the Bills’ place-kicker to miss the field goal at the end–which he did. He rightly called it a classless act.

  • And after they lose, a persistent reporter will ask Howard why God wanted his team to lose… it’ll be excellent television.

    I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, Hemant, but there’s no way in hell anyone is going to ask that question. Only the Onion.

  • Alexis

    If on a windless day, the baseball, basketball, hockey puck or whatever suddenly does a zee curve that flips the game…maybe…but til then, nope.

  • littlejohn

    Of course god’s team wins! Oral Roberts talked to Jesus a few years ago, and god junior is 900 feet tall! Imagine the slam dunks!

  • Let’s see if Howard is honest like this guy, after Orlando gets killed.
    Harsh words for the Lord

    BTW, i was rooting for the Magic until this business.

  • Larry Huffman

    I too find myself rooting against Orlando…but that is because I have been a Laker fan…to the extreme…my entire life. lol

    But this is not about the team he ‘offended’…this is about the logic behind his statements…and more importantly the unwillingness for people to openly scoff at him for his statements. The article listed above was refreshing to me, as an example of a reporter…religious convinctions unknown, though he did attend catholic school we are told…who decided to have a backbone and make a stand on the illogic of it all.

    To a group of atheists, standing up and proclaiming publically that Howard’s statements are stupid are just par for the course…we do that with every whacko-god subject that comes through this and other forums. But, it must be remembered, that if the audience is mainstream, there are large numbers of people who will ignorantly call this article ‘oppressing towards religion’ or disrespectful towards it. The reporter even tried his best to cut those ignorant people off at the pass in the article…but I think he deserves some real credit for writing an article that could very easily cost him readership (even though it is those readers who are ignorant and he who is right on the mark).

    I have liked Howard on and off the court for the last couple of years…but I have not really seen much more than a couple of games a year, a highlight from time to time and a very funny T-Mobile commercial. As the playoffs wore on this year, however…Howard’s comments about god have gotten more and more under my skin. He is not just thanking god for something…or giving god credit after the fact…he is saying that god is going to give them a win. Even in my former theistic mind, this is way off from what the god I did believe in would have done.

    And…if I were to, for the sake of argument, accept the notion of the christian god being concerned with who wins the NBA playoffs…I can find one more HUGE flaw in Saint Dwight’s logic: He should be really worried. After all, if god directs who is going to win the NBA championship, then god’s track record really really really favors the Lakers and Phil Jackson. If Howard’s whacked theological views were accurate, god has obviously been a Laker fan since before Dwight was born or Orlando even had a team. 🙂

  • This is football, but Vince Lombardi once said that God favors the team “with larger players”. 🙂

    Now if a team with “athletes” such as myself wins anything at all, THAT will be a case of divine intervention! 🙂

  • ATL-Apostate

    Funny.
    He plays for a team called ‘Magic,’ which he also probably believes in.

  • Brooks

    The preacher at my parents’ church this past weekend was preaching about his comment about God and he was preaching on and on about how humble it is when Christian athletes give credit to God for their victories. I fail to see how it’s humble. It frankly sounds arrogant to me to think that the supposed all-loving divine creator of the universe cares about you winning a basketball game when there are all those starving children out there and amputees that God for some reason never heals and it also implicates that they think God hates the other team for some reason.

  • Dylan Armitage

    If they lose and someone does manage to ask them that question, there are only two possibly responses:
    1. “We didn’t pray hard enough.”
    2. “God works in mysterious ways.”

    Is there any other possible answer if you truly believe that God is on your side in a sports game?

  • Ah, but the Devil roots for the Lakers; he’s got courtside seats. I mean, the guy who played the Devil in The Witches of Eastwick and I sure wouldn’t want to make that guy mad at me.

  • Tim

    I say “Amen!” to this comment:

    It frankly sounds arrogant to me to think that the supposed all-loving divine creator of the universe cares about you winning a basketball game when there are all those starving children out there and amputees that God for some reason never heals and it also implicates that they think God hates the other team for some reason.

    I offer:

    Why don’t the “friendly atheists” combine wiht the “friendly believers” to support the ONE campaign, seeking to combat poverty around the world through jusice. See http://www.one.org

  • keddaw

    He totally misses the irony of playing for a team called “MAGIC” and saying God wants them to win:

    Exod. 22:18 “Do not allow a sorceress to live.”

    The Bible isn’t too keen on magic, or anything that challenges God’s omnipotence (is God really insecure or what?)

  • Reginald Selkirk

    Time for an update. God lost the NBA championship to Kobe Bryant.

  • TXatheist

    Well of course god was for the city of angels and not magic…

  • Tim

    My sadness, as a Jesus follower, is that my brothers and sisters think God is focused on NBA titles instead of Dafur, nuclear weapons, mass starvation, thousands of children dying every day from unsanitary drinking water,etc.