Middle Kingdom Monday: Dwight Howard has had an interesting time in Taiwan

 

                                             (Gene Wang/Getty Images) 

Former NBA All-Star Dwight Howard has had an interesting time in Taiwan, playing for the Taoyuan Leopards of the T1 League. Last season was his first season with the Leopards and at the moment, he is slated to return to the team, though his future technically remains up-in-the-air. The Leopards proposed to give him a 65% pay cut because he missed 10 of the team's 30 games due to injury and they want to be as economical as possible. Howard isn't sure he's willing to play for the Leopards as a result of this pay cut, but for now he's still listed as a member of their organization. 

In the 20 games that he did play, Howard put up big-time numbers, averaging 23.2 points, 16.2 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game. He was an All-Star and one of the best players in the league. The Leopards however struggled, finishing in sixth place out of six teams with an abysmal 6-24 record. When you consider how terrible they were, it makes sense for them to maybe not want to throw too much money at Howard, considering he made over $1M last year and they made a special exception for him to get paid that much. 

On top of putting up numbers on a bad team and facing a pay cut, Howard also got in trouble for calling Taiwan a country in a promotional video with their vice president. The People's Republic of China (Mainland China) sees the Republic of China (Taiwan) as a part of them and refuses to recognize them as a country. Howard calling Taiwan a country is totally cool to do if you are in Taiwan, but in Mainland China, that's like one of the worst things you can say. So, he's also gotten in the cross hairs of Chinese politics during his time over there. 

Whether or not Dwight Howard returns next season to the Leopards remains to be seen. Unless he can find a way back to the NBA, I think him playing in Taiwan again next season would be cool. Taiwan loves basketball and having a former NBA star like Howard playing for one of their teams has to make the fans and people of Taiwan excited. It'll be interesting to see what happens and if he does return, whether or not the Leopards will be able to have a better season. 

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