Former NBA star Dwight Howard, who played for 18 seasons in the NBA and won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, has signed to play for the Taoyuan Leopards in the T1 League, the club announced yesterday.
Howard, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2004 NBA draft with more than 1,200 NBA games under his belt, is expected to debut in the year-old professional league on Saturday next week, when the Leopards face New Taipei CTBC DEA at National Taiwan Sport University Arena in Taoyuan.
“I am so excited, and I can’t wait to touch down in Taiwan and start playing,” Howard said in a video posted on the Leopards’ Facebook page.
Photo: AFP
“This is my third time in Taiwan and I haven’t been for so long,” he said. “I can’t wait to see the fans and eat the food and have the best time ever, and bring the championship for Taoyuan City.”
Taoyuan Leopards general manager Brett Su (蘇翊傑) said in a statement that Howard’s addition would transform the Leopards into Taiwan’s strongest team and boost the overall level of play in the league.
“We hope to raise the level of domestic basketball by injecting more enthusiasm and creating a better environment,” Su said.
The Leopards on Saturday are to hold a news conference to introduce Howard before practice that day, the team said.
Howard played last season with the Los Angeles Lakers, his third stint with the team, before becoming a free agent.
In his 18-year NBA career, he was an eight-time NBA All-Star and a three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
The 2.08m-tall Howard, who turns 37 next month, made almost US$250 million in salary during his NBA career, statistics Web site Basketball Reference showed.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS