Los Angeles Lakers: Why Steve Nash Is Under More Pressure Than Dwight Howard

Dwight Howard and Steve Nash made their debut in purple and gold at the Lakers media day, or as the Lakers call it, just another Monday. Even though it's a day that's seemingly meaningless, it was hard not to look at the pictures that came out and not get excited.

Following that excitement came an endless rush of questions rushing to my mind—the most important of which surrounded the pressure that will inevitably close in on the new-look Los Angeles Lakers: obviously Kobe Bryant is under pressure to get his sixth ring, Nash is pressured for his first and Howard is basically supposed to turn into the future of the Los Angeles Lakers overnight.

From there it seems pretty simple to determine that of the two big newcomers Howard is under more pressure to succeed right away...right?



On the surface I would have to agree, Howard is now forever going to be linked to Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal, compared to them on end and once he sits down to retire, it'll be their legacy that determines his own legacy. You've got to imagine that Howard's already got a point against him just based on the fact that he doesn't have a name anywhere near as cool as the previous three guys.

Howard was brought in to bring the team a title. It's going to be a team effort, for sure, but swapping out Andrew Bynum for Howard was a big risk for a team to take, and only a title will really make a successful season.

Once you get down to the core of the issue, however, it's quite obvious that the pressure falls more on Nash than it does Howard.

Superficially, it's easy to look at Nash and see that he's a 38-year-old starting point guard in a league where the average age of a player is over a decade younger than Nash. That, combined with the fact that his legacy may ride on whether or not he wins a title and that he's now expected to run the offense for the Lakers in the center of a media hur...