Dwight Howard and 10 NBA Stars Who Wield Too Much Power on Their Respective Team

There comes a point where stars can be over-demanding, wield too much power and sway over the teams they play for.

Coaching, by definition, is a job that comes with authority and if someone else on the team has that authority, the coach loses it, thereby losing their ability to coach.

The same applies for GMs. If a general manager can’t manage, they can’t effectively be GMs.

It's similar to those awkward families where the children rule the roost. They demand that their parents make what they want for dinner, then if they feel there’s too much salt, demand the parents make it again.

Have you been to that home? 

In some cases, players will either elect to not use that power, or else, or use it responsibly. That doesn’t mean they don’t have too much though. To draw the same analogy, if the kid determines that the entire family is going on a health food diet, he has the same power as the kid who decides for the family whose kid determines they’re going to live on a diet of chili dogs and corn chips.

In either case, it’s the same power, just more responsible choices. It’s the parents’ job to set order in the house, not the children’s.

So, here are 10 players who have too much power over their teams, ranked by a balance of how much power they actually have and how much they use the power they have 

10. Derrick Rose

There were false reports that Derrick Rose “suggested” the Chicago Bulls trade Carlos Boozer for Pau Gasol. Now, of course that’s a) completely out of line with Rose’s personality, so it’s very unlikely that it ever would happen; b) if it did happen, the Lakers would never go for the trade and c) if it did happen, I don’t see the Spanish media scooping the story from the Chicago media.

Having said all that, let’s just ask hypothetically, if it did happen would the Bulls try to make the trade? It’s hard to believe that Rose could ask for and not get anything he wanted right now. Rose is unassuming, and perhaps, too uninvolved in helping recruit free agents, but if he decided to be the "power-player" he would be. 

He's very much like the silent majority owner of a company who could just one day decide it’s his company and wake up one morning and decide that he wants to run it. 

9. Chris Paul

Chris Paul is in a bit of an awkward situation. He has a year left on his contract. The Clippers traded for him, and he helped what is the historically worst franchise in all of professional sports to only their second trip to the second round.

He also happens to be a better coach than his head coach, Vinnie Del Negro, who is so dumb that he once tried to return a bag of M & Ms because all he got was Ws.

Now Paul has the authority to sign off on whether Del Negro keeps job or not. If the Clippers, and by the Clippers I mean Paul, decide to fire Del Idiot..erp Del Negro…then Paul will likely be the one who decides who coaches next year.

There’s a lot of sound, logical reasons to this, but this is akin to the kid choosing a healthy diet for his family. He might make the right choice this time, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

8. Dwyane Wade/LeBron James

From the infamous “shoulder bumping” incident involving LeBron James to the “sideline incident” involving Dwayne Wade, the world has waited for this duo, consisting of arguably the two best basketball players in the world, pitted against a coach who might have the least power of any coach in the NBA.

So far, they haven’t asked for a coaching change, but if they did, they’d get it faster than you can say Eric Spoelstra. It’s fair to mention, and worth repeating though, that they haven’t. For all the rhetoric surrounding their egos, they haven’t actually made any demands.

Where their power is a tad more limited though is that Pat Riley is never going to answer to anyone but Pat Riley. 

7. Ricky Rubio

Ricky Rubio is an absolutely electric young player whom the Timberwolves can see blossoming into a superstar at some point. In fact, they see it so much they risked Kevin Love’s contract talks in favor of Rubio.

Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams can only have one player with a fifth year under contract, and it was a major sticking point with the negotiations whether Love got that year or if it was going to be reserved for Rubio.

As sensational as Rubio is, he’s not Kevin Love, and it was a strange and bad decision for the ‘Wolves to prioritize Rubio above Love. In the end, they gave Love an opt-out clause after three seasons. Long term, this still might have cost them Love. 

Contracts are power, and effectively, they gave power to Rubio, with less than one year under his belt, over a player who finished sixth in MVP voting. 

6. Steve Nash

Steve Nash is the most popular player on the Suns, and arguably, the most popular athlete in Phoenix. Perhaps, it’s even fair to say he’s the most popular athlete in the history of Phoenix.

Chalk him in the “responsible kid” category of payers with power, but the Suns are still committing too much power to him.

They’ve delayed going into rebuilding mode too long. They've done so because they still keep trying to contend with him.. 

Nash can still be a part of championship franchise, but more as the final piece than the first piece. He wields too much power essentially by just staying. He could have asked to be traded any time in the last two years, and Phoenix would have obliged and been better off at this point. 

5. Deron Williams

Some have tried to paint Williams as being “selfish” for only suggesting that he’s doing something wrong by not guaranteeing that he’ll stay in Brooklyn after the Nets did so much to acquire him.

Here’s the difference. He never signed a contract with Brooklyn. He never asked to be traded to Brooklyn, or anywhere else, for that matter.

He simply woke up one day and learned he had been traded. That hardly obligates him to sticking with the team he was traded to.

He’s apparently willing to stay in Brooklyn, but only if they can acquire another star, such as Dwight Howard.

It’s a reasonable, albeit powerful request. The blame here lies squarely on New Jersey, but the fact remains that Williams wields too much power over his team. 

4. DeMarcus Cousins

DeMarcus Cousins had a fight with his coach, Paul Westphal, this year. After the fight, he allegedly demanded a trade. He forced the Kings to choose between Westphal and himself, and they chose Cousins.

Now granted, it’s not like Westphal was doing an amazing job as head coach, so it’s not as difficult a choice as it might have been if he’d been a better coach.

Still, the fact remains that new coach Keith Smart knows one thing coming in—if it comes down to him or Cousins, they aren’t going to make the “Smart” choice. 

3. Carmelo Anthony

Has any team ever done more to acquire a player and keep them?

First, it was a matter of getting him to New York, and to do that, they essentially spent every trade asset they could. Then, they fired their head coach Mike D’Antoni to make him happy.

All of this might be explainable if it had turned the Knicks into a contender, but in spite of it, they are a whopping 43-39 in games Anthony has played since coming over.

It’s not like Anthony has done better in the postseason either, as the Knicks have gone 1-8 with him in the playoffs.

And while Anthony has never missed the postseason in his nine-year career, he’s only made it out of the first round once, so it’s like he’s got a long history of success that's getting checked at the doors of Madison Square Gardens.

The Knicks are just giving too much power to a player that is not a franchise player

2. Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant has held the crown of most powerful player in the NBA for years. He still is the most powerful player in the NBA, just not the most reckless with his power.

First, it was forcing Shaquille O’Neal out of Los Angeles (at the very least in part). Then, it was in demanding to be traded unless he got “help"—a demand which would force the Lakers’ hand in landing Pau Gasol in a blockbuster trade.

He wanted Phil Jackson gone, and Jackson was gone. He wanted Phil Jackson back, and Jackson was back. 

Kobe has been wielding the power-player play longer and more precisely than anyone else has.

While Mike Brown might have been hired without his “permission,” the Mike Brown tenure has hardly been one that challenges his authority. In fact, Brown’s philosophy of coaching Kobe seems to revolve around him letting Kobe do whatever he wants.

With Bryant’s divorce pending, there's now officially no one in his life who can tell him, “no.” 

1. Dwight Howard

Dwight Howard effectively is the most powerful man in the Orlando Magic organization that doesn't own it, and he's still not happy. He wants to be traded from the team which has bent over backwards to appease his every wish and whim.

He's done that while complaining that he doesn't have enough influence. 

Howard effectively had both the Magic's coach, Stan Van Gundy and their GM, Otis Smith fired. Then after he oversaw both firings, he still has trade demands.

Howard not only has the most power of any player in the league, he uses it the most irresponsibly and recklessly. It can be argued that no player has ever done more to simultaneously help and hurt his franchise as what Howard has done this year.