The great centers that followed, such as Marshal, Sky Hook, and Shark, were all legends who eventually became part of the Zijin bloodline for various reasons.

Everything is pointing to: the next stop of the dynasty!

At that time, Lakers general manager Kupchak said at the press conference when Howard joined:

"We hope that in ten years we will have the opportunity to hang a jersey in the Lakers Arena with the name Dwight Howard on it!"

Familiar recipe, familiar taste.

If everything goes according to normal predictions, it will be Shark 2.0!

There was also a famous and classic scene in the news report about Howard joining the Lakers that year:

A Lakers fan wearing a purple and gold jersey and a baseball cap shouted in front of the Staples Center gate of the Lakers' home stadium - With such a lineup, my mother will win the championship!

The subsequent development was very clear to everyone. All fans were looking for the mother of the Lakers fan...

Ahem, let’s get down to business.

That year, the Lakers had 0 wins and 8 losses in the preseason and started the regular season with 1 win and 4 losses. In the great showdown between old and new centers that was considered comparable to the "Yao Shark's first game" with the Trail Blazers, No. 1 center Howard

He was beaten in all directions by a rookie Wang Zelin.

It was also from that battle that the alliance's scepter began to shift, slowly flowing to Portland, and was eventually controlled by the young man from China.

In the subsequent regular season, as the Trail Blazers youth team became more and more dark horse, the entire Western Conference had to quickly clean up.

In order not to be swept away by the wave of the new era, teams in the Western Conference that aspire to the playoffs have to follow the footsteps of the Blazers' youth army and conduct a new round of team elites.

Compared with other teams, this seemingly famous Super Lakers is actually too decadent and they can no longer keep up with the times.

Even if Kobe swears in the middle of the season, he will definitely lead the Lakers into the playoffs!

But the truth is cruel. When the wheels of history roll forward, Kobe Bryant, the Black Mamba who was once the league's number one player, has to break his promise this time.

The Lakers ultimately didn't make the playoffs like Kobe exploded.

Yes, at the beginning of the season, the Super Lakers were considered to be the champions, but in the end they failed to even make the playoffs.

Fans of that era witnessed the bleakest moment in the history of the purple and gold jersey, and at the same time the most chaotic moment.

From a current perspective, if we sum up the 2012-13 Lakers in one season, the luxurious Purple and Gold Army mainly lost in the following points:

The first is injuries.

The Lakers suffered 17 injuries throughout the season, and different players missed a total of 176 games due to injuries. Everyone in F4 suffered serious injuries.

There is no need to go into too much detail about Kobe, as he was slightly injured and could not get out of the firing line.

Howard played with a shoulder injury and a back injury, and had to come back several months early for the sake of record.

My sister-in-law injured her foot and had a concussion.

At that time, I was basically living with injuries. I had pain in my back, a broken leg at the beginning of the season, and a broken hamstring.

The Lakers' F4 on paper is actually often F3, F2... and in the most serious cases, only F1 is left.

Secondly, the tactical system is chaotic.

The Lakers went through a coaching change that season, from Mike Brown's Princeton style of play to D'Antoni's fast-break running and gunning style.

The latter is especially outrageous. You must know that except for Howard, the average age of the other old guys in the Lakers lineup is 34 years and 91 days.

Are you sure it's not really a joke that such an extremely aging classic car wants to race around at the speed of a Ferrari?

But that's what D'Antoni did, and then the Lakers' record, which had been able to maintain around 50%, suddenly took a turn for the worse. At the worst time, they almost fell to 11th in the Western Conference.

In desperation, after suffering a losing streak at the end of January, the Black Mamba became angry and took the lead in reacting and began to return the basketball game to its original state.

That is, relying on the personal abilities of the stars to solve problems.

Not to mention, there isn’t much else about the Lakers other than a bunch of stars.

After the All-Star break, our record was close to 60%, and by the end of the season it was actually close to 50%.

It's a pity that the hole in the front is really too big, and it can't be filled back no matter how much it is filled in the back.

Then there's the management chaos.

This is particularly direct, as Lakers owner Jerry Buss is critically ill, and the power game between Buss Jr. and his sister Jeannie Buss has intensified, eventually affecting the entire Lakers team.

The final reason lies with Howard.

Even though he was affected by a back injury this year, Howard still averaged luxurious data of 17 12 2 per game. Looking at the data alone, even though his position as the league's number one center has gradually become unstable due to the strong rise of Wang Zelin, he is still at the top of the list.

Ranked among the first-tier centers in the league.

The most criticized thing is actually his obsession with low post shots.

In the 2012-13 season, Howard's post-ups accounted for 45% of his total offense. In other words, nearly half of his offenses were post-ups with the ball. However, he could only score 0.74 points per round through post-ups.

Ranked 121st in the league, with a poor shooting percentage of only 44.5%.

But in fact, all of Howard's technical characteristics are completely designed for pick-and-rolls.

Now that the team has Nash, a famous pick-and-roll master in history, he doesn't like pick-and-rolls and is obsessed with post-up play. This is the most difficult thing to understand.

It was also the main reason for the constant conflicts between him and Kobe in the second half of the season.

As for the reason why Howard's real name was beaten back then, there is still no reasonable explanation.

But later in an interview with Nash, he said: Maybe it was the various experiences after coming to the Lakers that reminded Howard of the last super center O'Neal who joined the Lakers. However, O'Neal didn't like Howard very much from his playing days to his retirement.

Therefore, Howard, who is in the remaining critical period, wants to prove that he can attack for a long time, and at the same time, he also wants to slap O'Neal hard in the face.

The result is that Howard clearly has the league's most dangerous pick-and-roll finishing ability, and Nash happens to be the league's strongest pick-and-roll initiator. The original match made in heaven actually fell out on the court.

It really makes people sigh with emotion about the magic of reality.

The final outcome was that Howard left the Lakers and fell from the top at a young age.

The conflict between him and Kobe became more and more intense under the media's fanning.

During several seasons with the Mosaics, every time they played against the Lakers, Howard and Kobe would inevitably have a verbal conflict.

If Wang Zelin was the person Howard hated most in the past season, then Kobe Bryant would definitely rank second.

But now, looking at Kobe's kind smile, Howard was really in a daze for a moment.

After experiencing the struggles and troughs of the Mosaic team, and now wandering to the Hawks, thinking about the past, Howard suddenly discovered that he actually missed the time when he joined the Lakers and missed every quarrel with Kobe.

Howard finally let go of all the grievances he had with Kobe. At this moment, the once happy Monster also completed his transformation into Master Huo.

And this is a path that Bald Hua never imagined.
Chapter completed!