Latest / Bleacher Report / Dwight Howard on Hall of Fame, Playing Overseas & More with Dale Earnhardt Jr. _ Taking Laps, Ep. 2

Transcript

Dwight Howard on Hall of Fame, Playing Overseas & More with Dale Earnhardt Jr. _ Taking Laps, Ep. 2 · Bleacher Report

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: D H twelve hour. How are you doing, man?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: How do you appreciate you coming out today? Hey, I'm
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: gonna take you for a couple of laps around this racetrack.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: But I don't know if you can get into this corvette.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking like, let's see if you.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Can get in there.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: How it's gonna work? Well, how does it work?
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Let me Sarah handle right there? And I think we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: got to see it all the way back. But I
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: know it's gonna be tight. Look at this cow.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: And he do it.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oh no, he's in buckle up?
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: Please do.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, this is crazy.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: You sure you're comfortable as you can be.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: I'm comfortable as that can be.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna take you for a couple laps. I always
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: wanted to meet you, Manu. Yeah, man, I wanted you
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: to play your whole career, and I know you're kind
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: of you're getting toward the end of that. And I
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: retired from full time driving in two thousand seventeen and
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I got into broadcasting. I kind of love talking to
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: guys that are sort of in that transition. Yeah, you know,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: they gave me really great advice years ago. They said
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: don't retire from racing or from anything. Retire to something.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: So what's next? What are you going to next?
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: You know, when I was playing and I was in
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: my prime, I was like, when I stopped playing.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Basketball, you know what I'm gonna do.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna just lay in the bed and go to
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: sleep for as long as I can. But then, you know,
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: after sleeping for a couple of hours, you get up.
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: You're like, Ben, I want to do something, you know.
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: So I started doing my podcast, So started doing more traveling.
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: I started a basketball league in Asia, no kidding.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: And I went over there in Taiwan and played for
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: a year. And after playing, I felt so.
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: Amazing and I was like, man, I want more guys
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: who played basketball to actually go over and season, you know, play.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: As a kid, always wanted to travel the world. Yeah,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: and Ben and I used.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: To look at the globe and spend the globe and like, man,
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: I want to go here, here, here.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: All these different places.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: And I actually got a chance to go to all
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: the different places as a kid that I have looked
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: at and it's just amazing to to be what basketball
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: has done for me. And I wanted to provide that
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: opportunity for more guys and women across the world to
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: be able to do that. So we started the league
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: and it's been going on for three years now. It's
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: going so great. We have a seven foot seven player.
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: He's the tallest player to play basketball right now. Really, yes,
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: he's so tall, but it's just an amazing experience what
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: basketball has afforded be. And even to be sitting in
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: the car with you.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: You recently got inducted in the Hall of Fame, and
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: I was able to see how emotional that was for you.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Compare that feeling of being inducted, knowing that.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: You were selected versus you know, winning a national title,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: winning a championship, all.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: The other things you accomplish. You rear.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Where does that Hall of Fame rake?
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: It's like it's really like going to heaven, you know,
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: like in church when they say we passed.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: You know, we have to go to see God.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: And if our name is in the lamb's book off,
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: it's going to say well done, I good and faithful servant.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: And hearing that call from the Hall of Fame, it's
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: like saying from the basketball Heaven's well.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Done, I could and faithful servant, Like you did it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: Everything I wrote down everything that I prayed for, everything
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: that I practiced for, and I cried for.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: This is that moment right there. So it's like, wow,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: I can't believe it. Like when I got the call
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: I was. I cried so much.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: I had no more tears in my body, like everything
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: had came out, but it was tears of joy. Like
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: I could see as myself as a kid working out.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: I can see myself writing down my goals and saying,
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: I'm going to make it to the NBA, and but
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: to be the first pick all these different things I'm
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: writing them down.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, man, this is it. It really happened. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: then now at the end of it, when it's all
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: said and done, I'm in the Hall of Fame.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Like forever, you know, public speaking, speaking in front of
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: large crowds.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I was always kind of nervous to do those things.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: But when I got up to give my Hall of
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Fame speech, I had zero anxiety because everything on that
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: paper that I had, that had crafted was something that
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: was important for me to say.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: If you thought about that moment, been able to get
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: up I have.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I have.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: I've been writing down notes, I've been trying to figure out,
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: like I'm played for so long, eighteen years, It's so long,
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: and I'm like, it's so many people I want to
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: say thank you to, as so many teammates that I
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: want to say thank you to, like the organizations on
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: owners everybody. So was like, how how am I going
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: to fit this into the time phrame?
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: What that could I do? You know?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: What was the decision to go play in the Big Three?
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: How has that been unique and fun in its own way?
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: It's so excited to be a part of the three
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: because I've been a big fan.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Of Ice Cute my whole life.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: I've watched all the all his movies, the Fridays, the
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: fist Fights, the twenty one and twenty two jump Streets.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: He's been asking me to come for years to play.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: And you know, I still love the game. I still
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: love playing and you know, see great opportunity to really
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: learn a new game. Like we played three on three
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: in the backyard, all those different things, but I never
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: played three on three and they arena like I've did Vibe.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: I've done vib on five right, and so now it's
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: like a whole different feel, like it's half court, the
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: other goal is not there.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: It's like I've graduated from five on five.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: Then I've been to Hall of Fame, and I have
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: a chance to go to the Big Three and the
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: Also we talked about doing some great things with the
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: Big three International.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: I was so afraid to like actually drive a race car.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: But I used to drive my cars real fast until
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: one day I was like, I'm too big to be
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: driving fast.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Just slow down. One of my fastest in the car
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: was like one and was too big to be.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That's that's pretty good.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: One as pretty good when he was tripping. We've been
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: sitting here running around.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: At about an eighty mile an hour. I'm gonna running
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: up one fast, all right, we'll see if we can
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: get up.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: Wheah tubato, Oh my god, wow.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: One hundred and twenty Oh man, g forces just shove
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you down into the sea.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: Yeo, oh wow.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Imagine forty of us out here at one time, side
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: by side, free wide.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: That's crazy. Like that's so crazy. Like I always think
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: about that, like how do you the training for that?
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's just you gotta get out there and
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: You start learning the.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: The etiquette and what people you know, what's fair and
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: what's not fair? What's a bad boove, a bad block
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: or you don't ever want to put your competition in
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: a bad situation or danger situation. But you do have
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: to be selfish, you know, to be good, you kind
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: of do have to be a little selfish on the
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: on the racetrack. I imagine there's.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Some some of that as well. It happens the best
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: get NBA.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah basketball, I really enjoyed it, man too.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Appreciate you so much? Are you I would have learned
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: how to drift one day?
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll figure it out. Maybe that's the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: next installment.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Dwight Howard, we can do it in.
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: Tokyo on the travel Tokyo Drift.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: We gotta give you.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Give you a pat on the back for taking one
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: for the team getting in here.
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: And oh you think you aren't comfortable, It's okay to
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: sit and talk with you, man, I will be crypt though.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Congratulations on everything they got telling your way man, thank you,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: appreciate you.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Oh this is still I hope I can get out.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Uh uh huh.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Huh I made here. He is he got