Remember when ATLien Dwight Howard was a dominant center who never got hurt and seemed to be a goofy nice guy?

That was before the Dwightmare erupted in Orlando and Howard came off looking like a selfish prima donna while trying to get his teammates traded and his coach fired. Then he backtracked and re-signed with the Magic before backtracking again and forcing a trade to the Lakers.

Now, karma being what it is, Howard is hobbled and no longer looking like a dominant defensive force while periodically being called out by Kobe Bryant. Apparently unsatisfied that he's sufficiently tarnished his reputation, Howard thew shade on his former Magic teammates in a recent interview with KCAL in Los Angeles.

"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 said.

That prompted some of those former teammates, including Jameer Nelson and Rashard Lewis, to fire back. Can't blame them. They caught the fallout from Dwightmare while never uttering a negative public word about their two-faced center.

Dwight backtracked on his comments after the Lakers game last night.

 "My statement was just to say that our team that I played with in Orlando, we were the underdogs. 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. Those were my teammates for years. They helped me become the player that I am today and we all got to the Finals because of that.

"I would never say anything disrespectful to those guys and I think a lot of people took that and ran with it, twisted it into a negative thing.”

Can't see how anyone would think Howard was being negative when he called his teammates a bunch of nobodies. All that time to come up with an excuse and that's the best Howard could do?

“I would be more surprised when Dwight starts taking responsibility,” J.J. Redick said, and now Howard has pulled off the tough trick of managing to make a Dukie look like the good guy in comparison.

It's possible Howard could have been including himself when he said the Magic had a team nobody wanted. It wouldn't make much sense because that was back when Howard was a player everybody wanted. Now it would make more sense because Howard is proving to be such a pain  (even by NBA superstar standards) that there have to be at least a few teams who wonder if he'd be worth the trouble.