Dwight Howard Explains Why He Has Decided to Sign With the Same Agent as His Longtime Foe Shaq

Shaq wants to help Dwight Howard take his career to the next level.

Image via USA TODAY Sports/Bill Streicher

Just two short weeks ago, Shaquille O’Neal inexplicably took a shot at Dwight Howard by posting a Photoshopped picture of him dunking on the Rockets center on Facebook. He didn’t explain why he did it, but the caption that he included with the photo seemed to allude to the fact that Shaq is still salty about Howard trying to call himself “Superman.”

“There can only be one Superman!!!” he wrote. “#ME.”

But now, Shaq has seemingly decided that he wants to help Howard, rather than continue to throw shots at him. The Verticalis reporting that Howard has decided to hire Shaq’s agent Perry Rogers to represent him moving forward after firing his old agent Dan Fegan last month. Rogers doesn’t currently represent any other NBA players, but according to Howard, Shaq called him a few weeks ago and told him that Rogers could take his career to the next level.

“He reached out to me and felt like this could be something that could really help me in my future,” Howard told USA TODAY Sports shortly after the news about his agent change broke last night . “We talked, more so about basketball. And then we started talking about agents and all that stuff.”

Wait…what?

“He said, ‘Hey, I’ve got somebody who really helped change my life and really sculptured the Shaq that you see today,’” Howard said. “He introduced me to Perry. Perry came down to Houston. We had a really good conversation. It was a decision I made on my own. That’s why I liked it, because I decided to make it. There wasn’t anybody who was around, anybody who could say, ‘Yo, what do you think?’ I went with what I felt was right [for] me.”

Well, OK then. Howard also said that he doesn’t have any beef with Shaq, despite all of the shots Shaq has taken at him over the years.

“I don’t necessarily have an issue with Shaq,” he said. “People say, ‘Well, he’s the real Superman and all of this stuff.’ But that man has had a very good career…Why wouldn’t anybody want to say, ‘I want to be like Shaq,’ with all of the stuff that he has accomplished on and off the court, with his personality, all that stuff? It’s something for anybody to want to look up to.”

Howard is right. Signing with the guy who helped turn Shaq into Shaq isn’t a bad idea. At all. But given the history Howard and Shaq have—and given the Facebook post that Shaq just put up two weeks ago—isn’t it weird to hear about this happening now?

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[via The Vertical]

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