Howard had missed the last three games -- all wins for the Lakers -- but not at the decision of trainers or D'Antoni. According to D'Antoni, Howard could have played.
"Yeah, he's been cleared for a while," he said. "I mean, he's always clear because he has a tear. It's going to be there but he had pain, so obviously he's not going to play with the pain, and he felt better today. That's why he played."
There's that "pain" shot again. The same one that Kobe Bryant gave Howard prior to Thursday's game. Bryant said to ESPNBoston.com, "We don't have time for [Howard's shoulder] to heal. We need some urgency." Bryant also said that pain is "something that you have to balance out and manage."
D'Antoni echoed that after Thursday's loss, saying, "Well, [Howard] has to [work his way through pain] because we don't have a whole lot of other solutions right now with Pau [Gasol] being out especially."
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"I can't get involved with what they've been saying to the media," Howard told CSNNE.com. "I understand they've been saying certain things, but I know my health. I haven't been cleared for weeks to play.
"This is my body, and I have to control my body and my future and my career. So I can't worry about anybody else."
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"Hopefully they'll start supporting me the way they need to," Howard told CSNNE.com. "Until then, I'm going to continue to do whatever I can to help our team win."
http://www.csnne.com/basketball-boston- ... eedID=3352I know what the contract math is, but do we really think Howard is going to re-sign in LA? Would Kobe even support it if he did? I'm not really seeing this working out.
If they can get something like Asik+Patterson+Parsons+picks (including the TOR pick) for him from the Rockets, then I think they need to take that deal.