Taoyuan Leopards General Manager Brett Su (???) stepped down Monday after apologizing to fans for not publicly announcing the team’s plan to sit Dwight Howard in Sunday’s T1 League home game against the Kaohsiung Aquas.

Nearly 15,000 fans showed up at the National Taiwan Sport University Gymnasium for the game against the Aquas, and many booed the Leopards vociferously when it became evident the Leopards were not going to play Howard.

Afterwards, several fans complained to the Consumer Protection Committee that what the team did was not right and that it should have made it clear ahead of time that Howard was going to sit Sunday’s game out.

In a post on Instagram, Su, a former guard on Taiwan’s national team, explained the decision to sit Howard for the third of the Leopards’ three games in a three-day stretch was made for the sake of the player and the good of the team as a whole.

“The team’s policy dictates that all players should be ready to go for every game,” Su wrote. “So, Howard was originally slated to play all three games.”

But after the team’s loss to the New Taipei CTBC DEA on Saturday, Howard, who missed games earlier in the season with an ailing knee, told the team that his knee was acting up again.

The team doctor and trainers checked him several times on Sunday leading up to the 2 p.m. start time, Su said, but Howard initially had not reached the point where he could not play, and the former NBA star took to the court for pregame warm-ups.

After a last check of his condition just 10 minutes before the opening tip, however, the team doctor felt the former NBA star was at risk of reinjuring his knee if he played and decided to shut him down even though Howard wanted to give it a go, Su wrote.

Howard even suggested he could come off the bench if he felt better during the game, Su wrote, but Su and the coaches opted not to take the risk for the sake of Howard’s health and the team’s long-term benefit.

The general manager insisted that it was not the team’s intention to hide the decision from fans to sit Howard, but he said he understood that the team did not update fans in a timely manner.

He described that as a mistake on his part, and that he would resign as general manager to take responsibility for the mishap and that some form of compensation for fans would soon be announced.

The Leopards lost to the Aquas 93-89, a result Su said would not have happened had they let the eight-time NBA all-star on the court.

In a post-match interview, Howard said that after suiting up in defeats on Friday and Saturday, the Leopards coaching staff had felt it necessary to rest him.

“The coaching staff and everyone knew that this would be my third game back-to-back-to-back [and] less than 24 hours from the last game. They felt that it was necessary for me to take a break and for other guys to get a chance to really come out and play,” Howard said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel