Dwight Howard: “When I played for the Houston Rockets, I tweeted ‘Free Palestine’ and I almost got kicked out of the league for it… Less than 10 minutes later, I got a call from the NBA commissioner, agents, people in my foundation, and even folks from Texas, telling me to take it down”

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But when you’re in the NBA, there are a lot of things you want to say, but you know if you say them, there will be repercussions. You could get into a lot of trouble. For example, a couple of years ago when I played for the Houston Rockets, I tweeted “Free Palestine,” and I almost got kicked out of the league for it. I was just trying to figure out why. Before that, I had spoken with some Palestinians who told me about the struggles in their country. I actually went to the movies one day in Houston, and a group of Palestinians approached me. They said, “Hey man, we’re big fans of you. Can we watch the movie with you?” I was like, “Cool.” When I was in Houston—or even in Orlando and other cities I played in—I would take fans to movies, to Main Event, or to events at Dave & Buster’s. After the movie, we took pictures, and they asked me to bring awareness to what was going on in their country. Me, having a big heart, thought, “This is the Christian thing to do.” So, I tweeted “Free Palestine.” Less than 10 minutes later, I got a call from the NBA commissioner, agents, people in my foundation, and even folks from Texas, telling me to take it down. They said, “You’re going to get into trouble. You need to delete this tweet.” I was like, “What did I do that was so bad? Can somebody explain this to me?”