Dwight Howard's Ex-Magic Teammates Fire Back After Being Criticized

These days, it doesn't look like Dwight Howard's making too many friends in NBA locker rooms.

Since going tit-for-tat with Kone Bryant in the headlines for part of the season, Howard has not endeared himself to his ex-teammates on the Orlando Magic after Howard made some unflattering remarks about his old team recently.

"My team in Orlando was a team full of people who nobody wanted, and I was the leader and I led that team with a smile on my face," Howard told KCAL-TV of the Magic Sunday after he scored 20 points with 15 rebounds to help the Lakers beat the Hornets on Sunday.

Naturally, his ex-teammates did not take kindly to those words from Howard, who was with the team for eight seasons and helped lead them to the 2009 NBA Finals.

"At some point, when are you [Dwight] gonna as a man, when are you going to take ownership and stay out of the media in a professional manner?" Magic point guard Jameer Nelson told theOrlando Sentinel on Wednesday.

Rashard Lewis, another ex-teammate of Howard's, also criticized Howard for speaking with the media when "he should be focused on playing for the Lakers and making the playoffs."

The latest words from Howard are just another example of the bitter break-up between he and Orlando. Howard, a beloved member of the Magic for eight seasons, stirred bad feelings when he declined to sign a contract extension with Orlando last season, and his falling out with then-coach Stan Van Gundy led to Van Gundy's firing and Howard's trade to Los Angeles.

Howard later claimed to ESPNLosAngeles.com that his words were misinterpreted.

"My statement was just to say that our team that I played with in Orlando, we were the underdogs," Howard said. "Nobody really talked about our team. It was underrated. Everybody overlooked us for the whole time I was there in Orlando and I hated that. We all hated that. We thrived off that. My comments were never to say anything disrespectful to those guys."