adidas and Orlando Magic forward/center Dwight Howard announced today that they have entered into a multi-year partnership agreement. Howard, the first overall selection of the Orlando Magic in the 2004 NBA Draft became the third player in NBA history to be selected with the first overall pick directly out of high school.
As a high school senior, Howard lead Southwest Christian Academy to the 2004 Class A Georgia state championship while averaging 25.0 ppg., 18.0 rpg., 3.5 apg., and 8.0 blkpg. Howard finished his career at Southwest Christian Academy playing in 129 varsity games and accumulating 2,146 points, 1,728 rebounds and 811 block shoots. Capping off his outstanding high school career, Howard was named the 2004 Naismith Award winner (given to the nation’s top high school player), Morgan Wooten High School Player of the Year, Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year and All-USA Today First Team. He was also named McDonald’s High School Player of the Year, Georgia’s Mr. Basketball and a Parade Magazine All-American. This summer while playing in the Pepsi Summer League, Howard showed that he was ready for the next level. Playing in five games for the Orlando Magic summer league team, Howard averaged 12.0 points, 10.4 rebounds and 3.0 blocks in over thirty minutes of playing time per game. The 10.4 rebounds and 3.0 blocks led all Pepsi Summer League participants.
“I am excited to continue my relationship with adidas,” explains Howard. “There were a number of other companies that showed a great deal of interest in me, but with my relationship with the people at adidas and playing for the adidas sponsored Atlanta Celtics I felt adidas was where I belonged. I feel confident that as I enter the most exciting and challenging phase of my life adidas will be there with me.”
“Everyone at adidas is extremely excited about continuing our relationship with Dwight,” stated Erich Stamminger, President and CEO of adidas America. “This summer we have been aggressively partnering with the future superstars of the NBA – Josh Smith, JR Smith, Sebastian Telfair and now Dwight. Teaming these young players with our already outstanding group of superstars enables us to continue to underline our commitment to the US and global basketball category.”
adidas has been providing innovative products for the world’s best athletes for more than 50 years, from NBA legends such as Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to today’s superstars, such as Tracy McGrady, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett. This summer adidas launched the first adidas Kevin Garnett signature shoe and it quickly became the top selling sports shoe in the weeks following its launch. adidas is also set to launch a revolutionary new laceless performance footwear system with the debut (Oct. 29, 2004) of the T-MAC 4 with HUG.
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